Ahmad Rashad (/əˈmɑːd rəˈʃɑːd/ ə-MAHD rə-SHAHD; born Robert Earl Moore; November 19, 1949) is an American sportscaster and former professional football wide receiver.
Rashad was a panellist on the NFL Live pregame show for NBC, and also notably hosted the National Basketball Association weekly digest shows NBA Inside Stuff (1990–2004) and NBA Access with Ahmad Rashad (2005–2011).
Born Robert Earl Moore in 1949 in Portland, Oregon, he moved with his family to Tacoma, Washington.
Rashad graduated from Mount Tahoma High School[1] and accepted an athletic scholarship to the University of Oregon in Eugene.
He played football for the Ducks under head coach Jerry Frei, became a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and majored in elementary education at Oregon.
[7] A year later, Bobby Moore legally changed his name to Ahmad Rashād, which means "admirable one led to truth" in Arabic.
[8][9] He adopted his last name from his Egyptian-American mentor, biochemist Rashad Khalifa,[10] with whom he studied Arabic.
[10] At Oregon, Moore played wide receiver and wingback as a sophomore in 1969 and made the all-conference team.
[13] At the time Moore left Oregon, his rushing yards, receptions, and 226 points were all school records.
[15] He made the UPI all-rookie team in 1972,[16] but second-year head coach Bob Hollway was fired after a 4–9–1 season.
He was traded days before the start of the 1976 regular season, sent to the Minnesota Vikings for a future draft pick.
Rashad also has the distinction of the longest play from scrimmage that didn't score a touchdown: 98 yards in a 1972 game against the Rams.
In early 2013, he became a panelist on the daily talk show Morning Drive on the Golf Channel, but left that summer.
[24] Right before the launch of NBA Inside Stuff in 1990, Rashad, who was 40 years old at the time, signed a two-day contract with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Rashad was known for his athleticism, as evidenced by him playing multiple offensive positions in his football career.
[25] He was subbed on for Hersey Hawkins and, in the first play of his NBA career, he gave up an and-one shooting foul to Tony Campbell.
During an ensuing timeout, head coach Jim Lynam drew up a play for Rashad to run across the baseline for an open look.
He has fathered a total of six children, including a son, Geoffrey Simmons, born to his high school girlfriend Melody Neal.
After he turned 18, he contacted his father through Amara (formerly the Medina Adoption Agency) in 2005, and the pair met for the first time.
He proposed to her earlier that year on national television during the pregame show of NBC's broadcast of the Thanksgiving Day football game, between the Detroit Lions and the New York Jets.