Part 1: 2021 Commit Quentin Moore's Long, Emotional Journey to the UW

Washington's head football coach was nearly brought to tears when 2021 tight end commit Quentin Moore's mother broke down and cried. Lake handed her a tissue and would have needed one for himself if he'd known the the family's journey. Her tears were well-beyond tears of joy.

Sara Steele-Moore was good at hiding her emotions. Yet as she sat in the office of University of Washington football coach Jimmy Lake, next to her son Quentin, the nation’s No. 1-rated, junior-college tight-end prospect, she was overcome by emotion.   

She and Quentin and her other son Tate met with Lake that day in late afternoon. They shared the expected small talk about Quentin's flight home and what a beautiful afternoon it was in mid-March.

Quentin Moore had traveled from Independence, Kansas, for an unofficial visit at the UW. He was locally produced at Inglemoor High School in the Seattle suburbs, but attending junior college in the Midwest. He hadn’t seen his mom or his younger brother since Christmas.

It was natural for Sara and her boys to go on the recruiting visit together because they did everything together.  When they walked into Lake's office they were drawn to the floor-to-ceiling windows and the magnificent view that overlooked Husky Stadium and Lake Washington.

It was a perfect Pacific Northwest day. 

“Perfect for recruiting,” Sara said.

Lake invited them to sit on the sofa across from him. A coffee table between them had water bottles and Husky memorabilia neatly arranged on it.

The conversation turned to football. Lake and Quentin chatted about the tight end's recent season at Independence Community College, his growth in the classroom and his goals for the upcoming season, both academically and athletically.

Lake’s voice got softer and more serious as he leaned in toward the tight end.

“Quentin, you mentioned three goals you wanted in a university," the coach outlined. "You wanted to play close to home so your mom could come watch your games, you want to take things to the next level and you want to play for a team that utilizes the tight end."

Sara sensed the next words that were coming from Lake. She already had an idea because of a call that her son received on the way from SeaTac Airport to the UW coach's office.

As Sara drove, Quentin chatted with his friend who said, "Does she know yet?"

She couldn't help but insert herself into the conversation and ask, "Do I know what?"

Quentin told her that he had a 50-50 chance of getting offered a scholarship.

"I didn't want to get her hopes up too high," he said.

Sara had endured too many times in which hope was hard to find. She and her boys had overcome numerous obstacles when survival was the only thing that mattered.

Lake knew what an offer would mean to Quentin, but he had no idea what it would mean to his mother.

“I'm offering you all of those things you are looking for in a team," the coach said. "I want to offer you a scholarship to play Husky football.”

The single mother of two broke into tears. She'd been holding them back for the better part of 15 years.

"I've only seen her cry three times in my lifetime," Moore said.

Lake handed Sara a tissue. It looked like he needed one for himself.

"Coach Lake started to tear up," Sara remembered. "He said I was about to make him cry. Both he and Quentin had to look away from me or they would have cried, as well.”

Lake understood the tears of joy any parent watching his or her son receive a scholarship offer. Yet for Sara, these were no ordinary tears. They were loaded with the  memories of what Quentin Moore had overcome. What her family had overcome.

His football recruitment hadn’t gone as planned. In fact, not much over the past decade and a half had gone according to a plan.

Moore readily admits that in high school he didn't put in the work to earn a big-time college scholarship. His words: he had a Division 1 body, but not the mindset.

"My biggest problem in high school was not the way that I was playing or the numbers I was putting up," he said. "It was my problem in the classroom."

With a GPA of 1.8 he didn't receive a scholarship offer from his hometown Huskies. He opted for a community college seven states and 2,000 miles away

Moore hadn’t always lacked focus, drive or motivation in the classroom, his mother said. The change can be traced to a sequence of events that began in 2006. Where his focus was on family survival.

Shortly after little brother Tate was born that year, Moore's father moved out of state, leaving Sara to shoulder the financial burden and raise their boys. They struggled to get by and she managed to hold off the creditors until 2011 when the house was foreclosed.

Sara and her two boys were put on the street, momentarily homeless.

“We lived in Tacoma at a friend's house and had to travel back and forth to Kenmore to drop Quentin off at school and football practice,” Sara said of the long commute to Inglemoor. 

The daily journey brought them closer together as a family but it began to take a toll, too.

“Quentin’s grades started to slip,” she said.

After a three-month search and living with two sets of friends, Sara and her boys finally found a home to rent in Inglemoor's school district. They regained some sort of normalcy.

“It was so nice to have our own roof over our heads again,” Sara said. “We no longer had to all share a room together.”

She and the boys were no longer stepping over each other in someone else's home. But the cramped quarters and long daily commute had brought benefits. The daily journey from Tacoma to North Seattle, and the resulting conversations, had strengthened them as a family.

Strength was needed because their struggles were not over. Things became more arduous.

“After we had been in our new house for three months," Sara said, "doctors found 12 cancerous tumors on my left breast."

Coming Next: Part 2 of the Quentin Moore story.