By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Antrone “Juice” Moore’s story began in Chicago’s South Side, and it almost ended in a YMCA in Augusta, Maine.
Now he’s continuing his story of athletic prowess, near death and recovery through an inspirational book, “A Walking Testimony Stroke Survivor: My Second Chance.”
He also continues coaching, and speaks to groups’ about the dangers of stroke, which almost claimed his life.
Arriving for a meeting with Moore at Grounds for Thought, it’s hard to identify him. Looking for a 42-year-old man? No, he looks more like a college student. Looking for a stroke survivor? Well, he exhibits few signs of his disability.
But he still feels the effects daily. Sometimes his memory and voice fail him, and he no longer moves with the ease of a star basketball player.
None of that going to keep him from spreading his message.
He grew up in poverty, he said. His mother was the breadwinner, so he stayed with his grandmother during the week and with his mother on weekends. Later he stayed with his aunt and uncle and their five kids. An only child, he was like a big brother to the brood.
He experienced what he said would now be considered bullying. He was teased, and called Casper, because of his light complexion.
If he came home pouting, “they would march me right back out and tell me not to let anyone bully me.”
Later he became the defender of his younger cousins. His grandmother infused him with values through her stories. “She was like a walking Bible,” he said.
His childhood was not one spent inside playing video games, but outside playing sports – football, baseball and, most of all, basketball.
As he got older, he focused on basketball. He was injured in junior high playing a street variation on football. That ended his interest in football. Then a few years later he was hit by a pitch. That ended his interest in baseball. He excelled on the hard court, as a shooting guard. He could put up the numbers. When his high school coach didn’t play him, he transferred to another school where he did play. That team only had six players.
And when he played against his old team in a playoff game, he put up almost 40 points. Not enough for his team, which was exhausted by the final buzzer, to win.
Moore graduated from high school, and planned to play in college. But he set his sights too high, looking only at big time schools he saw playing on national TV. He had no one to advise him. He knows now he’d have been better to start at a junior college and then transfer. Instead he stayed home, and played in summer leagues.
He finally got his chance to play at Lincoln University in Missouri. Injury slowed him down, and then his aunt and grandmother grew ill. His aunt died, and his heart wasn’t in his school work. So he returned home to help tend to his grandmother until she died.
Moore said he still feels the pain of losing two of the three women who raised him.
He got another shot at college playing at the University of Maine Presque Isle, and then after trouble there, he arrived at University of Maine Augusta, where he was named a Division II All American. That led to a stint playing with several semi-pro teams. He ended up doing some coaching. When the younger of his two daughters got interested in playing basketball – a father’s dream he said to have a child take an interest in his sport – he went a step further and started a team back in Augusta, the Juice Express.
Then one morning after several days of not feeling right – he attributed it to excessive partying – he went to the gym. He was working with a couple young men, one of whom had cerebral palsy, and then was going to play some basketball. Moore said he was trying to get his own game back. He went for a layup and collapsed.
A friend dragged him from the court. Moore said he could feel himself slipping away, his eyes rolling back. Someone called the mother of his younger daughter, and she realized he’d suffered a stroke.
At the hospital he was put into an induced coma. Doctors gave him a 50/50 shot of living. “I had an out of body experience,” Moore said. “I had the opportunity to see my grandmother. My grandmother always comes when I’m in trouble.”
He was in the coma for 10 days.
The odds played out in Moore’s favor. He recovered enough to go back to live with his parents in Chicago, but he felt he was a burden. They scrimped to provide him with the drugs he needed. He decided to return to Maine where he was finally got disability.
Now he’s in Bowling Green with his cousin Damien Womack, who co-authored the book with him. “Walking Testimony” is available on a variety of online sites and through his own website http://whatdoidesire.com/. There’s talk of a documentary. He’s started a company Team HOW LLC, with Womack as CEO.
Moore will speak about the dangers of stroke to whomever will listen, including last year Bowling Green City Council at the behest of Mayor Richard Edwards. His story has attracted the attention of George Foreman III, son of the boxing champion. He was even featured on a billboard in Boston.
Stroke is a silent killer, Moore said. But that killer didn’t claim him. “I’m a miracle.”
Thousands of other people are not as fortunate.
Moore wants to use his own story as a platform to warn others. “That’s my passion.”
