Amos Moates and Dominique Woodruff Instill Lessons and Passion into Woodruff Players as Coaches While Remembering How They Came up Short as Wolverine Teammates
By: Garrett Mitchell, Staff Writer | garrett@thewoodrufftimes.com
Amos Moates and Dominique Woodruff know all too well that you can never change the past. They also understand that lessons born from shortcomings and heartbreak can help younger generations shape the future.
From teammates that helped resurrect Woodruff football’s winning ways in the late 2000’s to coaching together on the same sideline they shared as players; the self-proclaimed brothers are doing their best to impart the life lessons they learned the hard way to this generation of Wolverines.
For Amos and Dominique, it is a surreal experience.
“It is almost like a movie; something we have manifested,” said Woodruff. “I grew up watching guys like Tory Dandy, Thomas McClintock, and Antonio Patton then we came along and started breaking records and coaching youth league after high school. It really opened my eyes. I did not want these young guys to go through what I did. Our dream was to be on the sideline as state champions and I want that for these guys. I want to coach long enough to see my kids experience that, too.”
For Moates, coaching was not so much an ambition as a destiny, and as he describes it, coaching found him instead.
“We spoke this into existence a long time ago,” Moates added. “We started coaching in our youth league with these dudes and won a youth championship. To see where these guys are now, we are really on our way. Dominique and I came up short of winning a state championship as players but I feel like we started to bring back the standard of Woodruff football. Coaching now with my brother is a phenomenal feeling.”
He added, “I tell people all the time that coaching chose me.”
Dominique was a standout running back during his playing career, and Amos a wide receiver than helped Woodruff football shatter decades old offensive records. Woodruff was a senior on the 2008 team under first-year head coach Brian Lane that finished 11-3 and advanced to the upper-state championship game before losing to Central-Pageland.
A year later, Amos helped lead the Wolverines to an 11-0 start and the state’s number one ranking before a soul-crushing loss to Batesburg-Leesville in the second round of the play-offs shattered his dreams of being a state champion.
Back then, both Moates and Woodruff helped bring life back into a program that was then relegated to an afterthought and turned the Wolverines back into a championship contender
after years of mediocrity. Now together, they are coaching the 2025 Woodruff Wolverines who are 10-1 as they enter the second-round play-offs, whose players have championship aspirations of their own.
“I don’t want them to go through what we did, losing to Central Pageland,” Woodruff explained. “It was a hurtful feeling. It didn’t fall into our hands. Hopefully it all works out with these guys. I want them to achieve what we didn’t get to do and live our dreams through them.”
Moates started coaching in Woodruff’s youth league in 2013. By 2020 and 2021 he coached two years for Florence Chapel Middle School in District 5. Similarly, Woodruff was coaching rec league teams.
Amos was able to come back to Woodruff and join the varsity staff as wide receivers’ coach in 2023, and Dominique followed a year later. They have been joined at the hip since their youth, and as older and wiser adults, it is no different.
Especially for Moates, he also gets to coach his son, Kori, one of the Wolverines’ best players who has followed in his dad’s footsteps as a wide receiver. But it is a far deeper calling to every player on the team that inspires him.
“Nobody taught me,” he said. “I don’t just do it for my son; I do it for all of them. That is an unbelievable feeling and makes me want to keep coaching.”
Woodruff joked that “Kori is Amos 2.0. Watching him play is liking watching Amos all over again.”
Now, almost two decades removed from their time as football players at Woodruff, both Amos and Dominique see a team with all the qualities and skill to do what fell so painfully short of their grasp. A state championship. Both believe this Woodruff team has what it takes, and both say they do not want the current players to feel what they endured when their time came to an end.
For Amos, it was a long time before he could bear going back to Varner Stadium.
“It was one thing to get beat in upper-state (by Central-Pageland), but losing early and getting outplayed (by Batesburg-Leesville) hurt bad,” admitted Moates. “I didn’t go to a game for years. I wanted nothing to do with football. I couldn’t stomach it. I kept all of that bottled up. I have to give them the knowledge of what I learned and it is up to them to make it happen. It was more than football to us. We could always lean on each other and I see that same thing in these guys.”
Woodruff feels the same way. The biggest lesson he wants the players to learn, he says, is that time and opportunity is fleeting. For the Wolverines’ 25 seniors, this is their last chance. Dominque knows that feeling very well.
“We tell them to treat the game like life,” he stated. “It is now or never. If you don’t get it done now it will never happen. We ask them every day, how bad do you want it? The play-offs are on the line so what are you going to do? These guys, especially the seniors, know every game could be their last. This is real life and you’ve got to win at the end.”
It is why both men pour their souls into coaching this generation of Woodruff football players. Amos says he and Dominique reminisce about their playing days often and talk about how special it would be to see today’s team win it all. That, they both say, is the ultimate goal and they do not want the players to take the opportunity for granted.
“There is not a time when we get together that we don’t talk about (winning a state championship),” said Moates. “We were right there and it is why we put so much into coaching. We pour everything we have into these guys. We talk about winning a championship so much we really think it will happen. Seeing these guys through every step of the way is a phenomenal feeling. “
Time does move quickly and waits for nobody. Time ran out on Moates and Woodruff as players and left them wondering what could have been. Together as coaches, the former teammates from yesterday want the Woodruff players of the present know that if they do not leave everything on the field, there is no going back and changing it.
The last bit of sand is fading from this season of life’s hourglass and they know it is in the players’ hands now to make the most of it.
“You can’t rewind it and go back,” cautioned Woodruff. “Me and Amos always said when we coached these kids in youth league that they would be special by the time they were seniors and that time came in the blink of an eye.”
Their time.
Author: gmitchell85
