When the Salisbury Township School District built a new high school in 1963, it needed people to staff athletic events. A young social studies teacher named Tom Moyer figured he would help out and became the scoreboard operator for football, basketball and wrestling.

He enjoyed the job, and the school kept asking him to come back year after year, so he dutifully showed up to run the scoreboard. He retired from teaching in 1997, but that didn’t finish his run at the controls.

It was another 28 years until Moyer finally decide to find something else to do with his free time and last Wednesday night, Moyer got to post the final score of his career, a 57-45 boys basketball win over Southern Lehigh on the Falcons’ senior night.

“When I retired, I thought I’d be done, but they still asked me to keep coming back, so I kept coming back,” said Moyer in a very matter of fact fashion.

Over that time, Moyer had a front-row seat for the entire coaching career of the legendary Bill Paulick, who also started in 1963 and finished 30 years later. The court at Salisbury High School is known as Bill Paulick Court.

Moyer has also seen the entire coaching career of current coach Jason Weaver, who is in his 17th season, along with a few other Falcons boys basketball mentors.

Moyer has seen some good teams and some teams that struggled. He has enjoyed it all.

Eight 1,000-point scorers have come through Salisbury High School, including the incomparable Antoine Hubbard, who scored over 2,000 points at Salisbury in the early ‘90s.

“I remember Antoine Hubbard and Bill Paulick and those teams and now we have Jason Weaver, and he’s a guy who always gets the best out of his kids, so they’re fun to watch,” said Moyer. “Those types of things are the main highlights but we have had some good teams and it’s always been fun or I wouldn’t have done it.”

Moyer has had the same opportunity for both football and wrestling, enduring some very cold nights at the stadium while making sure the clock ran smoothly and the score was correct. Recently, Moyer was forced to cut back on his football work because the hike up the long steps became an obstacle, but his work for basketball and wrestling continued. Now, with the home season for boys and girls basketball and wrestling completed, Moyer is officially done.

There is going to be a lot of extra time on Moyer’s hands now that he is retired, but he doesn’t figure to be bored.

“My wife is going to make me clean,” said Moyer with a laugh. “There’s a lot of things to do, so I’ll just go ahead with life.”