Troy defensive back benefits from ‘break’ early in career

TROY — Terence Moore was supposed to be throwing touchdown passes for Troy, not defending them.
But a freak accident in a pickup basketball game the summer before he enrolled at Troy changed that.
“I was being stupid in the offseason playing basketball and I tried to dunk on somebody,” Moore said. “He ran up under me, I fell and I broke my (throwing) wrist.
“I called (then-assistant) coach (Ricky) Logo and he said, ‘OK, you’re on defense now.’”
The move has paid off ever since. Moore played as a reserve to Brannon Condren, who was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in April’s NFL Draft, for two seasons before emerging as a starter at strong safety this year.
The Columbus, Ga., native had his best game of the year in Saturday’s 44-34 loss to Georgia, finishing with a team-high 11 tackles and a forced fumble.
On the season, Moore is third on the team with 48 tackles. Troy (6-3, 5-0 Sun Belt) plays at Western Kentucky (6-3) Saturday at 4 p.m.
Listed at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, Moore has professional size for a safety.
“He’s a very big safety,” linebacker Marcus Richardson said. “He’s a biscuit away from being a linebacker.”
Moore credited his weight room ethic to Condren, and worked out with him while Condren was getting ready for various NFL scouting days.
“He wasn’t selfish or anything even though I was a guy who played his position,” Moore said. “He taught me everything he knew.”
But here’s something you don’t know about Moore. He has Puerto Rican roots, and for the last four years, he’s studied those.
His maternal grandparents are from Puerto Rico and he hopes to visit there one summer and live with a Puerto Rican family.
Next summer, he plans to make a visit down there.
“I learned a lot this year going to a Puerto Rican Day festival in New York,” Moore said. “It made me appreciate a lot more about the heritage. I didn’t know much about it until the last four years.”
Through the last four years, he’s learned Spanish from his mother.
“My mother never spoke Spanish to me until the last four years or so,” Moore said. “Now, we have conversations in Spanish.”
His teammates still have a hard time believing him when he tells them he has Hispanic roots.
“Sometimes they don’t believe I’m Spanish, so I have to tell them something in Spanish so they’ll believe,” Moore said.
Said Richardson, “He’s Puerto Rican, but that’s only to a broad stretch of the imagination. He’s black to me.”