Charles Robert Moir (November 29, 1930 – November 14, 2019) was an American

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

coach. He was the head coach of the

Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball The Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball team is an NCAA Division I college basketball team competing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Home games are played at Cassell Coliseum, located on Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg. The Hokies ...

team from 1976 until his resignation in October 1987. During his 11 seasons at Virginia Tech, Moir's Hokies compiled a 213–119 record. He was forced to resign after the discovery of severe NCAA violations. Including his time at Tech and coaching stints in high school and at

Roanoke College Roanoke College is a private liberal arts college in Salem, Virginia. It has approximately 2,000 students who represent approximately 40 states and 30 countries. The college offers 35 majors, 57 minors and concentrations, and pre-professional pr ...

and

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

, Moir compiled a career record of 616–238 in his 31 seasons as a high school and college head coach. He was inducted into the

Virginia Sports Hall of Fame The Virginia Sports Hall of Fame honors athletes, coaches, administrators, journalists and other contributors to athletics. Many of the more than 350 inductees since 1972 were born in Virginia or enjoyed success in college, professional, amateur or ...

(the state-wide organization that honors sports figures who were either from Virginia, or contributed to teams from the state) in 2000.

College Athlete

Moir was a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

athlete at Appalachian State University. Following his college career, Moir played Minor League Baseball with the Cincinnati Reds organization.

College Coach

After three years in baseball, Moir moved on to coach high school basketball, coaching for eleven years in

Stuart, Virginia Stuart is a town in Patrick County, Virginia, where it is the county seat. The population was 1,408 at the 2010 census. The town of Stuart was named after Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, of nearby Ararat, Virginia. History Incorporation (1753� ...

Jefferson, North Carolina Jefferson is a town in and the county seat of Ashe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,611 at the 2010 census. History The North Carolina General Assembly created a special commission in 1799 to found a county seat for As ...

, and Mount Airy, North Carolina and finishing with a career record of 224–43. In 1963, Moir joined the Virginia Tech basketball coaching staff as an assistant. After coaching under

Bill Matthews William Matthews (born July 22, 1947) is a Canadian politician. Political career Matthews was a Progressive Conservative member of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly from 1982 to 1996. During this time, he was a cabinet minister ...

and Howard Shannon for four seasons, Moir moved on to

where he compiled a 133–44 record in his six years, winning the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

College Division (now called Division II) national championship in

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

. Moir's first recruit at Roanoke was Frankie Allen, the first

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

basketball player in school history, who would eventually follow Moir as the head coach of Virginia Tech and become Virginia Tech's first African American head coach. Moir left Roanoke for

in 1973, where he earned a 46–33 record. After three years in New Orleans, he returned to the Hokies and Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech

Moir became the head coach in 1976, replacing

Don DeVoe Donald Eugene DeVoe (born December 31, 1941) is a former American college basketball coach and former player. DeVoe played college basketball for Ohio State University, and later served as the head coach for Virginia Tech, the University of Wyom ...

, who had moved on to

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

. In Moir's first season, the Hokies earned a bid to the NIT, but fell in the second round to #12

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...

. In Moir's third season as coach, the Hokies, who had been independent since leaving the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly k ...

some 13 years earlier, joined the upstart Metro Conference. Tech stunned tournament favorite #13

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

in the conference semi-finals and went on to defeat

Florida State Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...

for the conference championship. Following Moir's lone losing season with the Hokies (1986–1987), a report presented by Mike Glazier and

Michael Slive Michael Lawrence Slive (July 26, 1940 – May 16, 2018) was an American attorney and college sports executive. Slive was the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), a college athletics association, from 2002 until 2015. As part of his ...

detailed 12 NCAA violations in Moir's program. The report found that, "in reviewing the academic records of basketball athletes, it is evident that most are not serious students." Most seriously, none of Moir's recruits from 1981 to 1986—essentially, what would be his last five recruiting classes—graduated. The most serious were that a player had falsely been given credit for a course he did not take and the wife of another player was given a personal car loan. Moir himself was cleared of any wrongdoing, but was forced to resign. Moir's ouster completed a difficult year for the Hokie program; athletics director and football coach

Bill Dooley William Gerald Dooley (May 19, 1934 – August 9, 2016) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1967–1977), Virginia Polytechni ...

had been pushed out earlier that year. In October, Virginia Tech's football and basketball programs were placed on two years' probation, and the basketball team was banned from postseason play until the 1989–90 season. Virginia Tech was placed in the unenviable position of having both football and basketball on NCAA probation. During his time at Tech, Moir led the Hokies to four NCAA tournament appearances and four NIT appearances. With a record of 213–119, Moir remains Tech's winningest basketball coach of all time and was inducted into the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

Personal

Moir's son, Page Moir, was the head men's basketball coach at

in Salem, Virginia from 1989–2016. The younger Moir played for his father as a walk-on at Virginia Tech in the 1980s. Charles Moir died on November 14, 2019, at age 88 of congestive heart failure.Former Roanoke College and Virginia Tech coach Charlie Moir dies
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Head coaching record

College

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moir, Charles 1930 births 2019 deaths American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Appalachian State Mountaineers baseball players Appalachian State Mountaineers men's basketball players Basketball coaches from North Carolina Basketball players from North Carolina College men's basketball head coaches in the United States High school basketball coaches in North Carolina High school basketball coaches in Virginia People from Stokes County, North Carolina Roanoke Maroons men's basketball coaches Tulane Green Wave men's basketball coaches Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball coaches