Moore father, son making Sandusky's regional trip together

SANDUSKY — DeMar Moore Sr. wanted to give his son De'Mar the proper due. But this was a situation with paternal pride and self-pride working against each other. And so when Moore Sr. was asked to compare his game to his son's, while Moore Jr. stood right next to him, he started one way, then quickly backed up. "He probably has a higher IQ than me. I think he has a better feel for the game," Moore Sr. said, then paused. "No, I'm lying. I left here as the all-time leader in assists and third in scoring, so I can't say that. I don't know. I don't think he's better than me. That's probably the right way to say it." Luckily for Sandusky, both father and son Moore are pretty darn good. Moore Sr., now the head coach at his alma mater, went to two regionals as a player in the 1990s. Moore Jr., a senior playing for his father, broke the single-season school assist record en route to a district championship of his own. They'll get at least one more game together Thursday night in a Division II regional semifinal against Lutheran West, and just like the rest of this lifelong journey of a coach and his son, it'll be special. "It's a coach's dream to be able to coach your kid, so I'm enjoying it," Moore Sr. said. A quick aside — the names. Moore Sr.'s actual first name is De'Mar, but he never uses the apostrophe. When Moore Jr. was born, they named him De'Mar, and the apostrophe stuck. So the father's name, DeMar, is pronounced with a short 'de' sound at the front, while the first syllable of Moore Jr.'s first name, De'Mar, sounds like 'day.' "Nobody ever calls me (De'Mar), so they don't know that's my name," Moore Sr. said. They aren't the same players on the court, but it's no surprise there's some overlap. Moore Sr. was a point guard for three varsity seasons, his last two as a full-time starter. "Every time he made a mistake he would transition and immediately go back on defense and more times than not come up with a big defensive play," said John Schlessman, who coached Moore Sr. at Sandusky and is now a commentator for BCSN Erie. Moore Jr. has really only grown into a full-time distributor role as a senior, but it's what he's been doing all his life. His former and current teammates praise his court vision, and it makes sense — he sees the game like the son of a former college point guard and long-time coach. Maybe where they overlap most is the headaches they give opposing offensive players. "Our defensive intensity is very similar," Moore Jr. said. In Saturday's district final victory, Moore Jr. was part of a Sandusky defense that forced 20 Lexington turnovers in the first half. He had six steals of his own by the end of the win. "(Moore Sr.) was just a phenomenal defender," Schlessman said. "You saw that in his son on Saturday, some of those steals he made. In fairness to De'Mar, he's had to follow in his dad's footsteps, and that's not easy." Father and son have been preparing for these moments for a long time. They struggled to remember a time when Moore Sr. wasn't his son's coach — they eventually arrived at the eighth and ninth grade school seasons as the only two times. And the coaching switch doesn't turn off when they leave the court. Moore Jr. has been joining in on film sessions with his dad since he was little. "It's fun," Moore Jr. said. "It's hard. And most of all, it's joyful. He's very hard on me, so I've got to go into everything knowing that he's gonna be harder on me than anybody else." There's no escaping hoops in the Moore household — Moore Jr. said "it's basketball 24/7." "He gets mad some days," Moore Sr. said. "He wakes up in the morning and I have just got done watching film, and I'm like, 'De'Mar come here and look at this.' Like, 'Dad, I know, we've watched it 20 times.' 'I know, but you need to see this.' It's just those kinds of things. We talk all the time. We talk about everything." Moore Jr. hasn't matched his father's senior year scoring. In 1995, Moore Sr. averaged 20.4 points per game. But the son has dished out nearly 200 assists this season. That hasn't stopped his father from being a tough critic. "In my eyes, for him to have a good game, it has to be a perfect game," Moore Sr. said. "My coaches will say man, stop being so hard on him, he had a good game. I'm like, well, not to me, he had four turnovers and should've only had one. I think I nitpick a lot." Moore Jr. doesn't mind, most of the time. "It definitely makes me better," Moore Jr. said. "I learn a lot of things from it." Together, they'll make the trip Thursday to BGSU, where Moore Sr. played, to play on a stage that Sandusky has never advanced beyond. The Blue Streaks have taken part in 10 regional semifinals and lost them all. Moore Sr. was part of two of those teams, in 1993 and 1994. That '93 team holds the current program record of 22 wins in a row that this year's team, at 20 straight and counting, is trying to match. So there's one thing still out there for the taking that Moore Jr. can do on the court that his father didn't. Although to get it done, it'll take both father and son working in tandem like they have for as long as they can remember. "We're gonna break that record," Moore Jr. said. "They ain't ever made it past regional semis. Thursday's the day."