{"id":608975,"date":"2026-02-18T01:34:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/608975\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:34:40","slug":"nuggets-doug-moe-was-face-of-denver-sports-before-elway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/608975\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ Doug Moe was face of Denver sports before Elway"},"content":{"rendered":"

We just lost the greatest stiff of all. Doug Moe officially left us Tuesday for That Big Coffee Shop In The Sky,<\/a> holding Big Jane in one hand<\/a> and Saint Peter with the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d kept in touch with Jane, and she called last week,\u201d former Nuggets assistant \u201cBig\u201d Bill Fricke told me Tuesday, not long after Moe, the Nuggets\u2019 idiosyncratic coach from 1980-90, passed away at the age of 87.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when I talked to (Moe\u2019s wife), she said, \u2018We\u2019re both at peace. Doug\u2019s at peace with it. He\u2019s ready to go. And I\u2019m at peace with it.\u2019 So it was good to hear that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ficke was Moe\u2019s right-hand man with the Nuggets from 1982-84, the Abbott to his Costello, at the start of one of the most successful \u2014 and absolutely bonkers \u2014 periods of the team\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Under Moe, the Nuggets made the playoffs nine straight times, reached the Western Conference semis on four occasions and danced it all the way to the conference finals in 1985. The Nuggets wound up losing Alex English to a thumb injury in Game 4 of those finals, and the Lakers took the series in five. Denver wouldn\u2019t reach the Western finals again until 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was one of the best coaches in the league,\u201d Ficke continued. \u201cA lot of those college coaches wouldn\u2019t have told you that. They thought all he did was move the ball around and that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the surface, everything about Doug Moe \u2014 his teams, his manner, his dress sense \u2014 seemed to embody complete madness. Yet there was a method. There was always more going on underneath the hood, kicking the way a baby duck\u2019s legs kick through a summer pond.<\/p>\n

Although they were both New Yorkers, Ficke reminded me, he didn\u2019t know Moe well until he\u2019d moved to Denver more than four decades ago. In those days, Ficke lived west of I-25. Moe lived east of I-25. Doug\u2019s place wasn\u2019t wired for cable.<\/p>\n

So this one afternoon, Bill\u2019s phone rang.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Ficke, you got cable?\u201d Moe asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Bill replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think it would be all right if I came over to watch a game tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I bring Jane?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, my wife knows Jane.\u201d<\/p>\n

And over they came. About a week later, Moe called him again. Same request.<\/p>\n

So this goes on a couple more times, well into the spring. One day, Bill thinks it was June of \u201982, Moe called again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Ficke,\u201d Moe said. \u201cHow would you like to be my assistant?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, (expletive),\u201d Bill replied. \u201cDon\u2019t ask me twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted somebody that he knew,\u201d Ficke explained, \u201cwho wasn\u2019t going to knife him in the back, that he could rely on. So it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

So were they. Moe was ahead of his time. He\u2019d followed his friend Brown to Denver, the frumpy ying to Brown\u2019s structured yang, as a Nuggets assistant during the dying embers of the ABA. When Moe took over the Nuggets for Donnie Walsh as head coach in \u201980, he weaponized altitude, preaching a high-tempo offense with constant motion and no set plays.<\/p>\n

Moe and Ficke usually rode together to games. On one of the days they didn\u2019t, Doug had called the Nuggets locker room and asked for Big Bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cFicke, I need you to catch tonight,\u201d Moe said. \u201cBecause I\u2019m sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOK,\u201d Bill said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Ficke, remember this: After two minutes, nobody\u2019s listening. Don\u2019t go into the (huddle), don\u2019t go into the locker room and start talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knew his players. He knew his business. Moe was the NBA\u2019s Coach of the Year in 1988. Brown helped transition the Nuggets into the NBA. But it was Moe, and his high-tempo attack, that put the franchise on the national map.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Doug, don\u2019t you think we should put a couple plays in for Alex or somebody?\u201d Ficke asked him once.<\/p>\n

Moe pondered this for half a second.<\/p>\n

\u201cFicke, if you put in one play,\u201d the coach replied, \u201cthey\u2019re not going to believe in our running game.\u201d<\/p>\n

On good nights, they ran teams ragged. Players were told not to hold the ball for more than two seconds. English and Kiki Vandeweghe ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in NBA scoring in 1982-83.<\/p>\n

Moe\u2019s Nuggets ran and dared the rest of the NBA to catch up. Those who saw them would fall in love with an end-to-end blur of rainbow jerseys, games in which no lead was ever safe. And where no parent could sit their kids within 15 feet of the Nuggets\u2019 bench without hearing a torrent of Moe obscenities.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has that image of him yelling at the players on the court,\u201d Ficke recalled. \u201cThey didn\u2019t realize that he was telling the players what was (about to happen) three steps ahead of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When his teams didn\u2019t entertain, Moe became the show, this cursing, grumbling, rumpled 6-foot-5 firebrand who dressed like a \u201970s private detective, a disheveled anti-hero who detested suits and ties. He was Joe Don Baker cast as a basketball player, Columbo with a jump shot.<\/p>\n

Moe once got fined for throwing water at an official. When he was fired in 1990, he brought champagne to a news conference to celebrate his axing because he was now being paid to do nothing.<\/p>\n

He was a savant. He did five-digit multiplication in his head. Moe was a genius when it came to basketball and personalities. He was an absolute artist with profanities, as blunt as the business end of a sledgehammer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing was, everything was over with the next game, the next day,\u201d Ficke recalled. \u201cAnd the players knew that. And that\u2019s why they respected him.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Moe painted in four-letter words, he became more renowned for one five-letter sobriquet: stiff. It was his pet phrase for try-hard guys. His pet phrase for athletically-challenged guys. It became his pet phrase for almost everybody.<\/p>\n

Bill Hanzlik? Stiff. Danny Schayes? Stiff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave up trying to explain Doug Moe long ago,\u201d Nuggets icon Dan Issel told the Los Angeles Times in 1985. \u201cThe thing I like about Doug is, he doesn\u2019t take it personally. If you mess up and he hollers and screams, you had it coming. When the game\u2019s over, it\u2019s forgotten. You can go have dinner with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughed easily. He forgave easily. Moe used to joke that he was two guys: Before and after the tilt, a sheer delight. In between, a snarling, barking wolf from pregame until the final horn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most loyal person you\u2019d ever meet,\u201d Ficke said. \u201cThey should put his picture next to the word \u2018loyal\u2019 in the dictionary. If you\u2019re his friend, you\u2019re his friend for life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doug wouldn\u2019t let his body get him down, although Lord knows his body tried. As a Nuggets assistant for George Karl in 2004, Moe suffered a heart attack and required bypass surgery. The next year, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which led to another procedure in September 2005.<\/p>\n

Doug and Big Jane eventually retired down in San Antonio, close to their boys. Ficke visited the Moes down in Texas this past November. He remembers that they hung out for six hours or so. He remembers how they told war stories \u2019til it hurt. He also remembers a hospice nurse was coming over daily to check on the former Nuggets coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was weak, don\u2019t get me wrong,\u201d Ficke said. \u201cBut he was upbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was one of one, real as a hangover. Moe became the face of Denver sports before John Elway, the Nuggets\u2019 Joker before Nikola Jokic. And the NBA still hasn\u2019t quite caught up with him.<\/p>\n

Luckily, Saint Peter\u2019s coffee shop never closes, because Moe has more stories to tell, loosening a tie he hates, having tossed aside a jacket that never quite fit. The angels are in for an earful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We just lost the greatest stiff of all. Doug Moe officially left us Tuesday for That Big Coffee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[4284,7,80940,44714,301,187,3943,6507,70624,165,251,252,6,253,302,4097,4098,66,198,2098,574],"class_list":["post-608975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-alex-english","tag-basketball","tag-bill-hanzlik","tag-dan-issel","tag-denver","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-george-karl","tag-john-elway","tag-latest-headlines","tag-los-angeles","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-nuggets","tag-nuggets-takes","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-texas","tag-western-conference"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116089068318548199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}