INDIANAPOLIS — There’s a thin line between glory and agony. A big play and a grave mistake. And in this case, a cool teacher and a professional athlete.
On a Tuesday in early December, Indianapolis Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II was leaning against the stage inside the gymnasium at Cardinal Ritter High when a student called out to him.
“Mr. Kenny, those refs were wrong!” the young man said, referencing a controversial penalty Moore was flagged for in a narrow Week 13 loss to the Houston Texans.
“And where’s your next class?” Moore responded, laughing as he quickly pointed the student in the right direction.
The entire interaction lasted about 15 seconds as each party wore a sheepish grin. It was as if the kid had broken the fourth wall in a screenplay and Moore simply stuck to the script. There’s no denying that Moore is the most famous person to regularly set foot inside Cardinal Ritter, a Catholic school that has students from seventh through 12th grades. Yet on this day, and many others throughout the school year, he doesn’t want to be recognized as “Kenny Moore II, Pro Bowl cornerback for the Indianapolis Colts.” He’d rather go by “Mr. Kenny,” the volunteer eighth-grade teacher and mentor who’s determined to leave a legacy that stretches far beyond football.
The Colts already believe he’s on his way.
Moore was named the Colts’ 2025 NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year, highlighted by his partnership with Cardinal Ritter and other philanthropic efforts. He’s the only player in franchise history to receive the award three times (2021, 2024 and 2025), and Colts co-owner Kalen Jackson said it was “an honor to have a front seat to see (Moore) grow, both on and off the field.” All 32 NFL teams chose their own Walter Payton Man of the Year, and a league-wide winner will be awarded Thursday night at the NFL Honors ceremony in San Francisco.
“It’s not like he’s seeking (the attention) and going, ‘Hey look at me,’” said Levar Johnson, Cardinal Ritter’s athletic director and football coach. “It’s an organic thing. So, when you look at a person like that, being mentioned in the same breath as Walter Payton, why not? Why wouldn’t he be? I mean, who’s doing what he’s doing?”
The answer to that question, at least in Indianapolis, is no one.
Tuesdays are typically an NFL player’s off day, a chance for him to unplug for a bit before shifting focus to the next opponent. But for Moore, he believes his minimal time off during the season is an opportunity to dive even deeper into the community he’s called home for nearly a decade. Sure, he could simply have donated money to Cardinal Ritter (and he has). However, he doesn’t believe a price can be put on true, genuine love, which explains why he was so adamant about entering the classroom during the 2025-26 school year.
Kenny Moore II, center, on working with Cardinal Ritter High students: “You want to help all of these kids. You want to help every single story in here.” (James Boyd / The Athletic)
Moore has worked closely with Cardinal Ritter in recent years thanks to Johnson, whom he trained with as an undrafted rookie in 2017. After Moore rose to stardom with the Colts and Johnson took over as Cardinal Ritter’s football coach in 2023, Moore said it was a no-brainer to eventually partner with the school. Last year, through his Love One Foundation, Moore launched the Rise and Shine Initiative at Cardinal Ritter.
The initiative is aimed at eighth-grade students who the school has recognized may need more assistance and encouragement when it comes to maintaining good grades, upholding a positive self-image and believing they can be successful members of society, among other things. The class Moore is specifically a part of focuses on life skills, which can range from how to handle stress and build good leadership qualities to cultivating healthy relationships.
“Early on, it was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s Kenny Moore!’ … But it’s a difference between people cheering for you and people being like, ‘Yo, he’s really here. We’re in this together,’” Moore told The Athletic during one of his volunteer days in December. “I’m asking them how their grades are going. I’m asking them, ‘How’s home?’ because I truly want to see them grow.”
Moore said his willingness to be more hands-on as a volunteer teacher is twofold: First, he’s witnessed his mother, Angela Carter, have a profound impact on hundreds of students as a substitute teacher in his home state of Georgia, and he’s proud to follow in her footsteps. Second, as Moore explained, the Rise and Shine Initiative isn’t just a one-year endeavor. As students transition through higher grades, they’ll still be tracked until they graduate high school at Cardinal Ritter, and the hope is that by the end, the students will be better prepared for early adulthood.
“Really, if you can just reach one person, you’ve done something. That’s the goal. That would still be a success,” Moore said. “But as a giver, you always feel like you can do more. You want to help all of these kids. You want to help every single story in here. So, for me, I’m really just being a vessel and trying to give back to that same kid that I used to be. It’s been cool to just kick it with them because no matter how far I go, I don’t want to forget that I was in the same seat.
“I had the same struggles and the same dreams.”
Anna Selby is a Cardinal Ritter graduate and an English teacher at her alma mater. She’s worked with Moore throughout the school year and commended him for how “normal” he’s made everything feel, despite there being a huge poster of him plastered on the side of Lucas Oil Stadium. The kids in her class no longer ask Moore for autographs and selfies. They treat him as one of their own, and it’s reflected in the intimacy of the relationships he’s built.
When Moore walks the halls of Cardinal Ritter, he speaks to nearly every student on a first-name basis. He’s also greeted with hugs and fist bumps that reveal that the admiration they once held for him has been replaced by something with more substance: respect. That appreciation has carried over to the teachers, such as Selby, and the rest of the staff, who are now used to seeing Moore on more than just Tuesdays. Sometimes, he’ll stop by on a random Wednesday or Thursday, eager to continue nurturing the students he now views as family.
“It truly shows how dedicated he is to building better communities,” Selby said. “Because anyone can show up and do a camp for a day, but the fact that he’s here dang near every single week, even when I’m sure he has other things on his mind, it shows that his impact is more than just athletics. And it’s more than something that’s just gonna last the length of his NFL career. And yes, the NFL is a great career, but I think that his true passion, his true career, is giving back to communities, and I think his time at Ritter really reflects that.
“We’re lucky to have Mr. Kenny.”