Moses adjusts to new role at Western Kentucky

Aug. 16—BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — When Mike Moses resigned as St. Pauls girls basketball coach in June, he said he would take some time to weigh some opportunities and decide what his next career move would be.

Two months later, he's a Division-I assistant coach.

Moses was hired by Western Kentucky's women's basketball program, joining the staff as an assistant coach and director of recruiting, he announced in a social media post last week.

"I'm waking up every day in Disneyland, no matter where the job is at," Moses said of his first women's college coaching job. "Even when I played, after about 10th grade, I was a good basketball player but it was never the NBA for me — I wanted to coach. I wanted to be a college coach. I saw my dad do it on a Division-I level for years, so this was always my dream job."

Moses left St. Pauls after five seasons; he previously served as a men's assistant coach at Fayetteville State, where he also played college basketball. The Bulldogs were 97-24 under Moses — 67-3 over the last three seasons, with just one of those losses in the regular season. The 2019-20 Bulldogs started 27-0 before a third-round playoff loss; the 2020-21 team was 13-0 before being forced out of the state playoffs with COVID-19 cases on the team; and the 2021-22 team was 27-2, reaching the 2A East Regional final before falling to Farmville Central.

The months since that loss, which was ultimately his final game with the Bulldogs program, have been a whirlwind for the 38-year-old Moses.

"When I resigned from St. Pauls I had one thing in mind, to go do something else (in basketball), take another job, and got of that done at that job as far as paperwork and everything — and then Western Kentucky called. It's been a whirlwind, with that and with leaving St. Pauls and switching where I was going, and it's just me and my daughter down here, so getting her enrolled in school and getting her going."

He joins a Western Kentucky program that was 18-12 overall in the 2021-22 season, and 11-7 in Conference-USA. Moses' duties, in addition to in-game and practice coaching as an assistant coach, is to oversee the program's recruiting operation — consulting with head coach Greg Collins, touching base continuously with recruits and setting itineraries for official and unofficial visits.

Moses has coached AAU basketball with the Carolina Flames in recent years, in addition to his St. Pauls duties, something that makes the transition to his new role much easier.

"It's a cheat code," Moses said. "It helps tremendously, because the level of AAU I coached at — the EYBL, which is the best AAU conference in the country on the boys and girls side — not only have I seen all the players from the EYBL teams, but when you're on this road you build those relationships with those program directors and those coaches. And coaching against all the girls — I know who each kid is ... and these kids know me."

While Moses adjusts to life in Kentucky, he says a big piece of his heart remains in St. Pauls after his experiences there over the last five years, saying he was "blessed" to be around coaches like head football coach Mike Setzer, head boys basketball coach Corey Thompson and girls basketball assistant Jaymar Thompson, among others, on a daily basis.

"It was magical, unbelievable. Whatever adjective you want to use — it was surreal, it was magical, it was lifechanging," Moses said. "Without my time at St. Pauls, without T.J. Eichelberger and Jakieya Thompson and Taliya (Council) and Tamyra (Council), Iyania (Evans) and Mackenzie (Ransom), without those kids, I'm not here. Without (St. Pauls Principal) Jason Suggs hiring me, I'm not here."

Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at cstiles@robesonian.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @StilesOnSports.