Even when girls’ sports were non-existent in high schools, PE teacher Sally-Adams Moos participated in what was known as “play days”. During these days, local high schools would come together about once a month so that the girls could play sports against each other. 

Because of her love of fitness and the lack of sports for girls to participate in when she was growing up, Moos decided to pursue Physical Education and Health in college at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse. 

“I love being outside, I’m a very active person,” Moos said. “Physical education and health was one of the ways I could stay active and enjoy being with other kids in sports and activities because they just never had anything [like that] for us [girls] when we were growing up.”

Title IX, the decision that prohibited sex-based discrimination in public schools, came about in 1972 when Moos was in college. Girls’ sports and sports teams were able to form, but as Moos put it, “it took time for girls’ sports to get where they are today.”

During her 42 years at Creek, as both a teacher and coach, Moos coached girls’ track, girls’ volleyball, girls’ basketball, and both girls’ and boys’ track and field. Moos would coach Creek’s sports teams year-round with volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter, and track and field in the spring. 

“I coached all three seasons for about 10 or 12 years,” Moos said. “Then I had my own kids. Then I had to cut back a little bit to take care of my kids.”

Moos won multiple championships, perhaps most notably the 2008 state championship in Girls’ volleyball when Creek went 31-0 during their season, and she credits Title IX and her teams’ attitudes for making all of that possible. 

“My state championships, and all my volleyball teams, and my state champions for track and field, they would have never had that opportunity; so, you have to look at Title IX as one of the biggest things for women and women in sports,” Moos said. “And that doesn’t take anything away from men and men and sports, but the culture and the education has changed from the last 30 years, even back, 50 years.” 

Current Creek Girls’ volleyball head coach Steve Huntingdale points to Moos’ leadership for leading the volleyball program. “She deserves a tremendous amount of credit for helping grow the volleyball game, coaches and players,” he said via email interview, and her impact on Creek’s sports programs did not go unnoticed as Moos was inducted into the CHSAA Hall of Fame in Jan. 2022. 

Moos focused on helping students and student athletes with building connections and camaraderie both in the classroom and on the court or field. She believes that student participation in both sports and PE classes help students, especially freshmen, get to know other students and feel more connected to Creek’s community. 

When sophomore Rayna Moon joined Creek’s tennis team during her freshman year, she got to know her teammates better which let her feel more socially connected to the team. 

“I get to have nice conversations with them, but I would call them teammates more than friends since I don’t really see them a lot during school hours,” Moon said via text interview. 

Moos will possibly volunteer to work with students again in the future, yet she is excited, not sad, about retiring. 

“I’ve had fun and I enjoy it,” Moos said. “Some people are like ‘Moos, you’re finally retiring’ and I’m like ‘Yeah, it’s like the Energizer battery. It’s kind of running out.’ But it’s not. I’m not going to stop doing things. I’m just not going to have to worry about getting up every day and coming in, but I know that there’s some opportunity out there for me to volunteer and do some things and I’ll see [where] that leads. That’s what I call my next adventure.”