NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

For USM­NT (US Men’s Na­tion­al Team) and FC Dal­las de­fend­er Shaque­ll “Shaq” Moore, giv­ing back to com­mu­ni­ties through sport has been a ma­jor high­light of his ca­reer.

He un­der­stands the val­ue of ac­cess, men­tor­ship and ex­po­sure in shap­ing the fu­ture of young ath­letes. And as plans con­tin­ue for his foun­da­tion’s an­nu­al Youth Clas­sic in To­ba­go this De­cem­ber, he has praised the bud­ding foot­ballers on the is­land for hav­ing “an abun­dance of tal­ent.”

Moore is the son of for­mer To­bag­on­ian foot­baller Wen­dell Moore, with whom he runs the Shaq Moore Foun­da­tion.

The right-back was part of the US’ 2021 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup-win­ning squad, no­tably scor­ing the team’s fastest goal to date–20 sec­onds in–to de­feat Cana­da 1-0. He al­so rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try at the 2022 FI­FA World Cup in Qatar, and at the club lev­el, he has played in both Spain and the US.

The fa­ther-son duo has been cham­pi­oning these types of ini­tia­tives for many years, but the foun­da­tion was of­fi­cial­ly launched in 2023. Their mantra is: Un­lock­ing po­ten­tial through the beau­ti­ful game.

This year, the com­pe­ti­tion will be held from De­cem­ber 11-13 for four dif­fer­ent age groups– Boys Un­der-10 (7v7), boys U-12 (9v9), boys U-14 (11v11) and girls U-15 (9v9).

They will all have a chance at win­ning USD$1,000 worth of foot­ball equip­ment, mem­o­ra­bil­ia signed by Shaq, as well as tro­phies and medals. And to top it all off, youth acad­e­my scouts from the MLS (Ma­jor League Soc­cer) and La Liga (of Spain) will be there to see what the young­sters have to of­fer.

Shaq told WE that work­ing with chil­dren over the years and see­ing the im­pact these events have on them has been great. “Every time I go down there, the love is al­ways there and not on­ly from the kids but the com­mu­ni­ty.”

He added that even sim­ple mo­ments like see­ing the chil­dren smile re­in­force that their work is mak­ing a dif­fer­ence. “The last time, one of them Googled me and showed me their phone and said, ‘This is you!’” he re­called with a laugh. “There’s so much ex­cite­ment.”

Much like his fa­ther, he knew foot­ball was his call­ing from a young age. Wen­dell teased that Shaq was born “kick­ing and scream­ing” and ready to play the beau­ti­ful game.

But Shaq al­so cred­it­ed his T&T par­ents for his up­bring­ing, say­ing the lessons they taught him have car­ried him through­out his ca­reer. “A lot of the core val­ues that I live through to this day are (be­cause of) them–whether it’s men­tal tough­ness, pick­ing up af­ter your­self, man­ners… lit­tle stuff like that def­i­nite­ly res­onat­ed with me.”

Wen­dell re­called his young days of be­ing coached by vet­er­an foot­ball coach Bertille St Clair, as well as the lev­el of dis­ci­pline that was al­so in­stilled in him. He teased that he was so dis­ci­plined that peo­ple would of­ten ask if he was in the mil­i­tary. “That was all I knew. I came through a rig­or­ous train­ing regime with Bertille, and all of these things, I passed on to him (Shaq).”

But they both agreed that while hav­ing a nat­ur­al tal­ent or de­vel­op­ing one’s skills in sports is good, a sol­id mind­set and the very dis­ci­pline they spoke of are al­so cru­cial. “Skill is great, but it can on­ly get you so far. It’s al­so about how you har­ness and max­imise on it,” Shaq said. “Are you will­ing to put in the work, pick your head up af­ter a bad day or bad ex­pe­ri­ence... Tal­ent is good, but a guy who works hard can al­so catch up to you.”

But tal­ent, he added, is some­thing young To­bag­on­ian foot­ballers are def­i­nite­ly not lack­ing. “To­ba­go has an abun­dance of tal­ent and hope­ful­ly we can get them ex­posed and make op­por­tu­ni­ties for the next gen­er­a­tion, whether it’s on the youth team or the se­nior team.” He con­tin­ued, “My fa­ther has al­ways liked to give back and it’s def­i­nite­ly a big part of who I am.”

In ad­di­tion to To­ba­go, the foun­da­tion has al­so done work in Fort Laud­erdale and Nashville in the US. “It starts some­where, and that’s what we’re try­ing to do… It’s been great and it’s def­i­nite­ly some­thing I want to keep do­ing,” Shaq con­clud­ed.

More in­for­ma­tion about the com­pe­ti­tion, as well as reg­is­tra­tion de­tails, can be found at shaq­moore.com.