Daughter inspired Riders’ Moore throughout ACL recovery

Whenever Kyran Moore was feeling down during his injury rehab, his daughter would brighten his day.

Moore suffered a torn ACL on Oct. 30 last season; it was the first time he had to deal with a serious injury in his life.

“I didn’t know how to feel about it,” the 25-year-old Saskatchewan Roughriders slotback said. “I got on the phone and talked to my little girl and saw her smile and everything in me, I knew it was going to be OK.

“(I was) just going to work and every time I felt bad or feel down, I just think about Honor.”

While his daughter has become an inspiration to him, she also has offered Moore a new perspective on things. Moore became a father for the first time on Oct. 22, 2020, when Honor came into the world.

“It’s so crazy because football was all I had and all I thought about. When my girl ended up getting pregnant, she asked me the question, ‘Do you think it’s time to grow up?’ and I knew what that means,” Moore said.

“I thought I did and when (Honor) came and just being a dad, (I was) growing up mentally faster than expected. I learned everything is not about me so it taught me a lot.”

He’s having a lot of fun in his new role as dad.

“Just watching her grow up, you never know what she’s going to do every day,” Moore said. “Just watching her grow up and have fun, it’s just a different feeling.”

While Moore was watching his daughter grow up, he was nursing his ACL injury over the past eight months.

“I got the surgery (in Saskatchewan) and two weeks later I was walking back to the airport. When I went home, I did therapy for three days out of the week for two hours,” Moore said.

“It was two hours straight just non-stop going at it … When I got back here and the doctors checked my leg out — it’s like a 10- to 12-month process — they said, ‘You could come back in eight.’ I felt like I put the work in and I put enough work in so that made me feel good.”

That hard work came to fruition when Moore made his return to the Riders’ lineup on Aug. 26 against the B.C Lions.

“I felt like a kid in the candy store. I felt like it was the first day of Christmas just being out here and able to run and compete. Just having that passion back in me, it felt great,” Moore said.

Since coming back, Moore has caught 29 passes for 270 yards. That includes a 10-catch performance against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 30.

But the Riders have struggled this season to find wins; they currently have a 6-9-0 record and are battling for their playoff lives. That’s a far cry from the past couple of Rider teams of which Moore has been a part, as those squads were battling for a top seed at this point in the year.

“It’s a challenge. It’s something different but I love challenges, just coming back here and knowing we’ve got to win these games and the best of the best is going to show out in games like this,” Moore said. “I’m ready to show what I can do.”

The Riders take on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Friday. The Riders are trying to distance themselves from the Tiger-Cats (4-10-0) in order to qualify for the playoffs by way of the crossover.

Kickoff for the game is set for 5:30 p.m. The Green Zone pre-game show begins at 3 p.m.

“This is a playoff game. We have to get this win,” Moore said. “(We have to) go out there and compete and have fun with each other but know we need to get this win.”

While his focus is on the game, Moore is also trying to find out the best time to fly his daughter out to watch him play the sport that has given him so much.

“I think we play Calgary (Stampeders) on her birthday so it depends. If the weather is still like this, I’ll fly her out. If it starts to get cold, I’ll just wait until next year,” Moore said.