Lisa Ridgeway remembers exactly where she was when she heard the news.
“I was sitting outside on the quad when I got the phone call,” said the 2009 Upper Merion grad, who is now a sophomore at Gettysburg. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to say. It was news you don’t ever want to hear.”
The news Ridgeway still has trouble coming to grips with was the fact that her former high school basketball teammate, Jessica Moore, had been killed in a shooting at Seton Hall University.
“To hear your teammate and close friend had to go through that was really hard to comprehend,” Ridgeway said.
The shockwaves reverberated far and wide as word spread about the September 2010 shooting that claimed Moore’s life. On Friday night, over four months after the tragedy, Moore’s former teammates and friends paid tribute to a member of their family that had left them much too soon.
During halftime of the Vikings’ basketball game against Wissahickon in front of a packed house, girls’ basketball coach Tom Schurtz presented Moore’s parents – her mother, Dr. Phyllis Moore-Tolliver, and stepdad Olanda Tolliver – their daughter’s framed softball and basketball uniform jerseys.
The presentation was made with Moore’s parents surrounded by the teammates and friends their daughter loved.
“Really, the most amazing part about the night was that every single girl who played with Jessica was there,” Schurtz said. “Alexa Brunson took a bus from Hampton, Va., to be there. Katie Boyk and Emily Hoover took a plane from Pittsburgh.“They came from all over just to remember Jessica, and that shows the effect she had on these players. Every single player coming back is amazing. A lot of them felt they didn’t get to pay their respects at the funeral because it all happened so fast, and I think they looked at it as a way for them to say their good-byes. It was quite touching.”
Schurtz can still remember Moore showing up at his basketball table during the freshmen barbeque the summer before her junior year, announcing that she had arrived from Tennessee and wanted to join the basketball team.
“I remember right from the start she was very direct, very personable, very open and honest,” the Vikings’ coach said. “She knew who she was, and she knew what she wanted, and I always respected that in Jessica.”
Schurtz credits Moore for the success the Vikings experienced during the 2008-09 season when they finished in a tie for second in the SOL American Conference and advanced to the district quarterfinals after a huge win over PAC-10 champion Pottsgrove. The Vikings, who captured the Sherwood Christmas Tournament that season as well, closed out the year with a 17-7 mark.“She was a great example of giving yourself over to the larger picture,” Schurtz said. “While you may not be the best player, you can help your team become a great team just with a positive attitude.
“I talked to the younger kids who didn’t really know her. Jess wasn’t the biggest player ever to play at Upper Merion. She stood all of 5-4, but it didn’t matter the situation, it didn’t matter what was going on off the court or on the court – she just came in and she was going to be positive, and she was going to work hard. She had a tremendous belief in herself and a tremendous belief in her team, and it was infectious.”
Ridgeway echoed similar sentiments.
“She was always a positive leader,” she said. “Our senior year she was one of the main reasons we did so well because she was such a good leader, and she was able to bring everybody close together in a positive manner.”
Ridgeway went on to note that transfers are rare at Upper Merion.
“You live in the area and you go to the same public school and that kind of thing,” she said. “I just remember she transferred in her junior year and probably a week later had more friends than anyone I know. Her personality was something you would never forget.
“She was always so positive and so funny. Everyone just wanted to be around her.”
Alex Galdi was a sophomore on the basketball team when Moore came on board.
“All of us had been together, and she came in, and it was like she had been there the whole time,” said Galdi, now a freshman at Richard Stockton. “I got down on myself a lot when I was a junior and sophomore, and whenever I would do that, she was the one who would give me a high five first and tell me, ‘Don’t worry about it.’“She was the first one to make sure everything was okay. When I heard what happened to Jess, it was almost like it wasn’t real. I was speechless. It happened, and we were all far away and couldn’t be together. We couldn’t be with Mr. Schurtz. That’s what made it so not real. We were all separated. It just didn’t feel good.”
Like Ridgeway, Schurtz remembers exactly where he was when he received the news about Moore from his father – who had received a phone call from a reporter with The Star Ledger mistakenly thinking he was Moore’s coach.
“I had just finished a 100-mile bike ride that day with the MS ride,” the Vikings’ coach said. “I was actually at the finish line when my father called.
“When I found out, she was actually still clinging on to life, but no one would give me any details. The newspaper was looking for a quote – I didn’t really want to give them one. Within 40 minutes, it hit Facebook. I spent the rest of the day talking to my players who were asking if it was true, did it happen, what did I know.”
Jordan Haines, a sophomore at the University Hartford , was a softball teammate of Moore’s, and she recalled her introduction to the junior transfer.
“The basketball team had told her I was on the softball team, and she asked me about it – when it was starting, who the coach was and things like,” Haines recalled. “She was very outgoing, very happy, always wanted to be around people. She was always smiling.”
Moore was a two-year starter in center field for the Vikings.
“She always was joking around, always making people laugh,” Haines said. “If someone was having a bad day or a bad game, she was always there behind them to help them. She never doubted anyone, never doubted herself.”
Haines – like her high school teammates - was away at school when a friend from home called to tell her the news of Moore.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I didn’t think it was possible. She was an amazing person, and that doesn’t happen to anyone you know. No one should have to go through that. We were all kind of numb when we found out.”Going back on Friday evoked poignant memories for everyone.
“It was very hard to be there, seeing her family, seeing all of us there and at the same time knowing she wasn’t with us,” Haines said. “It hit us all at a different time.
“We had our close group of friends who knew Jess and went through school with Jess and there were hundreds of more people there just supporting her, but it felt as if someone was missing.”
“It wasn’t real when we were away at school,” Ridgeway added. “It wasn’t real until we came home for winter break, and we went to watch a girls’ basketball game.
“It was like, ‘Wow, Jess would have been here.’ She would have always been there. Last night teammates from my junior year and senior year were there, and we knew something was missing.”
Friday night’s tribute to Moore raised approximately $2,500 that will be donated to the Wounded Warrior, a project that held a special place in Moore’s heart.
According to Schurtz, the Upper Merion grad, whose father and stepfather are both soldiers, actually did her senior project on post-traumatic stress syndrome.
“In college, she was majoring in psychology, and her aspiration was to work with soldiers when they came home from war,” Schurtz said. “(Junior) Cassidy Koenig’s cousin came back from Iraq and needed time to heal, and he was part of the Wounded Warrior project.”It was Koenig who suggested that funds raised on Friday night be donated to that project.
Schurtz also credited Malik Elbari, an Upper Merion senior who is the head of the Superfans, who took the point in the fundraising efforts for the Wounded Warrior. The Superfans turned out in force on Friday night.
“It was Malik who came to me with the idea of the ‘Once a Viking, always a Viking’ t-shirt and the 60 elements in one family shirt,” Schurtz said. “He did a tremendous job.”
The seniors from Moore’s 08-09 squad gave her parents a signed ‘Once a Viking Always a Viking’ t-shirt.
“Upper Merion – we’re a competitive team, but we don’t hang district banners, and we don’t win a lot of league titles, but I tell you – we are a family and a very close-knit family,” Schurtz. “I’m very proud of my girls, all of them.”
On Friday night, the Upper Merion community paid tribute to a special member of its family.
“I remember walking in the gym and thinking of practices we had with her in there,” Haynes said. “Our coaches were there, and seeing them without her, sitting down (as a team) without her. Nothing felt the same.”
“We were all together, and it was nice to see everyone, but it was just different,” Galdi added. “It was just different. It wasn’t right. Something was missing.”
Moore may have been missing, but she will never be forgotten.
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