For at least a few minutes Sunday afternoon, Chuck Moehle looked and sounded like he was coaching once again. As he was sworn in as the new president of the Spring Hill Moose Lodge #521, Moehle reached far back into his past as he addressed the membership.
“T-E-A-M, team,” Moehle said. “That stands for ‘Together Everyone Achieves More.’” Moehle used to use that motto when he was coaching the Springstead High baseball team in the 1980s and ’90s. Moehle is 68 now and hasn’t been a head baseball coach since 1995. But he has a new team now.
That’s the membership of the fraternal lodge on Mariner Boulevard, which is part social club, part community activist. Founded in 1888 in Louisville, Ky., as a social club for men, Moose International has grown into a club of more than one million men and women with lodges in all 50 states, four Canadian provinces and the United Kingdom. The international organization contributes anywhere from $75 million to $100 million toward community service and college scholarships each year.
Locally, Moose Lodge 521 helps feed the needy at holidays, helps with a Toys For Tots drive, provides socks and blankets for the homeless, gives health and beauty packages to residents of assisted-living facilities, donates to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Youth Fund and gives out scholarships to Hernando County high school students that are going onto college. The lodge also holds a slew of social activities, like dances, parties and trivia contests for its members year-round.
“Anybody that knows me knows that I get pretty excited about the little things,” Moehle told the 75 or so members in attendance for the swearing in of the new president and officers. “But this is a very big thing to me.”
Moehle and his wife, Val, first joined the Moose about eight years ago. Although they have other interests (babysitting their grandson, Beckham, playing pickleball, sightseeing and working out), they’ve devoted a lot of energy, time and enthusiasm to the Moose.
“Chuck is a very ambitious and honest individual,” Moose member Mike Joerger said. “I was here when he joined and his energy and ambition has never wavered. He’s worked his way up through the levels of the Moose and now he’s been elected by his peers because he’s earned their trust and respect. I know a little bit about Chuck’s background coaching sports. But, in this role, I think he’s more like a cheerleader. He’s always positive and people naturally follow his lead.”
That’s not surprising because Moehle has been groomed for a leadership role almost since birth. His father (Charles Moehle) was a career Air Force officer. Moehle said the discipline — so common in the military — was part of his upbringing. That helped clear the way for a strong baseball career at Tampa’s Leto High School and at Saint Leo University.
“My dad was the best person I’ve ever known,” Moehle said. “I think I learned a lot about leadership — being calm and poised — from him. He taught me that there aren’t setbacks. Instead, there are challenges.”
After graduating from Saint Leo in 1978, Moehle found his way to Hernando County and Springstead, where he was hired to teach Social Studies. He dabbled as an assistant coach in several sports before landing the head baseball coach job at Springstead in 1983. From then until 1995, Moehle’s teams were known for their discipline, enthusiasm and on-field success. Under his tutelage, the Eagles won two conference championships and once finished as district runner-up in an age when districts were much larger than they are today.
After leaving his teaching job at Springstead in 2000, Moehle spent three years as an assistant principal and teacher at nearby Notre Dame Catholic School. But a chance to jump full speed back into athletics came in 2003 when Moehle was hired as the athletic director at Land O’ Lakes High School.
Moehle guided the Gators’ sports programs through 2009 before a brief stint as a teacher at Anclote High School. He went on to finish his teaching career at Sunlake High School, where he also served as an assistant coach on the staff of former Springstead football coach Bill Browning.
In his retirement, Moehle has found a new challenge as president of the local Moose lodge. Although the lodge has 800 registered members, a large chunk of them aren’t active. Moehle wants to change that. He also wants to mend what he said has been a “disconnect” between officers and the general membership in recent months.
All those years of leading a high school baseball team should come in handy. “As a coach, of course, I always tried to develop my players as athletes,” Moehle said. “But there were also common goals of helping them make the right decisions and helping them become better people. With the Moose, there also are common goals of making us a stronger group and helping the community.”
