The UK football captain who starred in a bowl under an alias for another school
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Kentucky football time machine
In a spring missing most sports because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com are re-publishing the game stories from the University of Kentucky’s 10 bowl victories in chronological order. These stories appear, with some light editing, as they were written at the time in the Herald, the Leader or the Herald-Leader. Click below to read all of the previously published stories in the series.
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Bill Moseley was team captain for the 1947 Kentucky Wildcats football team that beat Villanova in the Great Lakes Bowl.
That 24-14 victory on Dec. 6, 1947, at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium was the first bowl win in UK history. It was also the first postseason victory for the Kentucky head coach, one Paul “Bear” Bryant.
It was not, however, the first bowl win for Moseley.
The UK fullback had starred in a postseason game two seasons earlier while playing under an assumed name for a different university.
If you check the box score from New Mexico’s 34-24 victory over Denver in the Sun Bowl that followed the 1945 season, you will see that “Dick Moser” caught two touchdown passes for the victorious Lobos.
Dick Moser was Bill Moseley.
World War II was the catalyst for how a Kentucky Wildcats football player ended up starring in a bowl for New Mexico.
Moseley left his native Alabama to come to UK to play football under head coach A.D Kirwan. Moseley earned his first varsity letter at Kentucky in 1942, then departed college to join the U.S. Army Air Forces, where he became a gunner on B-24 and B-29 bombers.
When the war ended in 1945, Moseley was stationed at Kirtland Field in Albuquerque, N.M. His plan was to return to UK once his military obligation ended, but he was still on active duty as the 1945 football season approached.
So Moseley signed up to take classes at the University of New Mexico. Since he was there, he figured he may as well play football, too.
According to family lore, Moseley’s adoption of the alias “Dick Moser” happened through an interaction with a New Mexico sportswriter.
“Pop was concerned about (losing) his SEC eligibility (if he played at New Mexico),’ says Willie Moseley, Bill’s son. “... At an early practice that fall, the sportswriter asked him who he was. Pop muttered something under his breath.
“The sportswriter said, “Did you say ‘Dick Moser’?” Pop figured that was as good of a pseudonym as any, so he stuck with that name.”
With Moser playing a prominent role at both quarterback and receiver, Coach Willis Barnes’ 1945 New Mexico Lobos had a stellar year, outscoring foes a combined 208-61 while going 6-1-1.
On Jan. 1, 1946, in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, Moser caught touchdown passes of 37 and 47 yards as the Lobos rallied from 10 down to beat Denver.
No one ever caught more TD passes in a Sun Bowl until 2009, when Oklahoma’s Ryan Broyles caught three.
After having such success playing for New Mexico, it had to be tempting to stay once Moseley/Moser was discharged from the military.
Willie Moseley says his Dad — who passed away in 2015 at age 92 — was in the registration line to sign up for the next semester at New Mexico when he was hit with the realization he needed to come back to Kentucky.
In Lexington, Moseley rejoined a very different UK football team than the 3-6-1 one he left after the 1942 season.
Under Bryant, the new, highly driven Wildcats head coach, Kentucky went 7-3 in 1946 in Moseley’s first year back. With Moseley as team captain in 1947, the Cats compiled an 8-3 mark that finished with the bowl victory over Villanova.
Willie Moseley says he never asked his Dad which of his two bowl wins he most enjoyed.
“I’d opine the UNM game was probably more of a thrill because it was a come-from-behind win and he scored two TDs,” he says.
After his UK playing days ended, Bill Moseley married a Kentucky girl, Somerset’s Marie Denton, then returned to Alabama to coach high school football.
Moseley spent five seasons (1949-53) coaching at Sidney Lanier High School. His most celebrated player, quarterback Bart Starr, is someone of whom you may have heard.
In 1954 and ‘55, Moseley returned to UK and coached the offensive backfield for Blanton Collier. After two years as an SEC assistant coach, Moseley decided that was no life for a family man and returned to Alabama to work in private business.
For decades, Moseley’s “double life” as a college football player was little known.
“He didn’t tell me who he told,” says Willie Moseley. “... I don’t think I learned about this until the 1970s. As he got on up in years, I guess I sort of started encouraging him to let this unique anecdote go public.”
That’s why, in 2007, Bill Moseley told the Montgomery Advertiser the full story. “I wish I hadn’t done it,” he said then. “But I just didn’t know.”
That same year, Willie Moseley wrote an article for the University of New Mexico Alumni Magazine. It revealed to the Lobos the true identity of “Dick Moser” from their 1946 Sun Bowl championship team:
Kentucky’s Bill Moseley.
