Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1539020
16 SEPT. 13, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC HANSEN L eonard Moore not only knows what an answered prayer looks like, he is what an answered prayer looks like. Plays football for Notre Dame with that perspective framing his breakneck evolution and his budding legacy. Lives his life like he's never going to let go of that notion instead of letting the sudden disappearance of epilepsy from his life play out like a capricious lightning bolt that came out of the sky and stopped the seizures and the need to take daily medi- cation for seven years of his childhood. "I feel like it had more of an impact on my family than on me," the Irish sopho- more cornerback and consensus pre- season All-American reflected recently on outgrowing childhood epilepsy. "I still did all the normal things I could do, but it was hard." Hard, as in never being able to do some- thing so simple as take a shower or a bath without someone nearby to make sure the worst-case scenario didn't play out. "Definitely scary," he said, "just wak- ing up from the hospital and stuff like that. But it was huge being delivered from that and being able to go out here and ultimately play football without the risk of having another seizure." Someday, he said, he'll figure out a way to pay that forward to others going through the same experience through some sort of outreach. For now, he uses the experience to drive not only him- self to chase his potential, but to inspire and instruct others around him in what might be the nation's best secondary. Even if sometimes those looking in from the outside were slow to notice the ascending Round Rock, Texas, prod- uct. Like the University of Texas football program, located 17 miles from Moore's high school. And where his father, Dr. Leonard Moore, is a longtime his- tory professor and mom, Thais, teaches there, too, when she's not acting and directing plays in New York. And like Texas A&M, located less than 100 miles from home. The team Moore made his college debut against in last year's season opener — five plays in relief of starter and mentor Benjamin Morrison. And the team that comes to Notre Dame Stadium Sept. 13 for the second time ever and first visit since coach Bob Davie's 2000 squad hosted the Aggies — with a wide receiver corps upgraded by transfer portal additions. "I don't know why the Texas schools didn't show too much love," said Moore, who was a four-star Rivals250 prospect, "but I'm not tripping over that. And I don't know if I would have gone there anyways if I had gotten the offer. "I never really cared too much, so I ANSWERED PRAYER How epilepsy shaped Leonard Moore's Notre Dame rise Moore had to take medication daily to combat epileptic seizures for seven years during his childhood. "I still did all the normal things I could do," he said, "but it was hard." PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER