Memphis legend with 24 3-pointers in a game sees cautionary tale hit big screen

Taurean Moy leaned back in his chair, a sly smile overtaking the creases on his face as he nursed an iced mocha at a Midtown coffee shop last week. For a brief moment, “T-Head” was back.

Talk had turned to the regular pick-up basketball games he and other Memphis area basketball stars of the past and present take part in along with the biggest local star of them all, Penny Hardaway.

It’s here, on the court with his peers, Moy explains, when it often feels like nothing changed during the 17 years since he set a national record for 3-pointers at Booker T. Washington High School and simply became known by his nickname — “T-Head” — around town. It's short for "Trey Head," a nod to his 3-point shooting ability.

“Anything that comes up with shooting, I think I’m the best,” Moy said. “I ain’t trying to miss.”

But the rest of life was never that simple for Moy, a reality that must be confronted every time he applies for a full-time job and the past gets dredged up again.

He’s 35 years old now and a convicted felon, well aware of the mistakes and circumstances that turned his story into compelling fodder for a documentary. He is the latest cautionary tale out of South Memphis, and the worst part of all is he knows it.

“You know the saying, ‘Coulda, shoulda, woulda’ did this and that,” Moy said. “Like I really truthfully hands-on experienced that and I think about that. It’s hard out there.”

A story years in the making

Moy’s winding journey will be chronicled on the big screen Thursday night when “The Star That Never Shined,” a documentary produced by Nashville-based filmmaker Erich Brown, premieres in Memphis at Overton Square’s Studio on the Square.

It is also scheduled to be shown in Nashville, Atlanta, Tallahassee, Fla., and Blacksburg, Va., over the coming months and includes interviews with those who remember the exploits of "T-Head" best. But this week will mark the first time Moy allows himself to watch a movie that he hopes can help a younger generation avoid the pitfalls he struggled to overcome.

The idea for a documentary on “T-Head” first came to Brown in 2008, when he began to wonder what happened to the brazen 5-foot-11 guard who would pull up for 3-pointers all over the court and took the state of Tennessee by storm at the turn of the century. Brown figured Moy was destined for so much more watching him win the TSSAA Class AA championship and capture Mr. Basketball honors in 2001.

But then Brown went on the internet, read a story in The Commercial Appeal from 2006 and realized the legend known as “T-Head” was finishing up a three-year prison sentence in Nebraska.

“I’ve got to find him,” Brown thought at the time, and thus began a seven-year crusade that started with a deluge of phone calls to Moy’s grandmother’s house here in Memphis.

Said Brown: “It took me four years to get him to call me back.”

This elusiveness is also part of Moy’s history, whether it be the way he could confound defenders on the basketball court or how he went astray off it.

Take, for instance, the infamous 83-point explosion against Manassas on Dec. 5, 2000, a performance that included Moy hitting what still is a national record 24 3-pointers. The very next day he was arrested on marijuana and assault charges.

He never did graduate from Booker T. Washington and later earned a GED, which forced him to begin his college basketball career at Southwest Tennessee Community College despite significant interest from Division I schools.

But what few understood is that even when Moy seemed invincible with a basketball in his hands, he was crumbling inside.

“People will tell me so many amazing stories and it never moves me because I didn’t think I was that guy like that because I went through so much,” Moy said last week. “Section 8 homes. Mom working and still not enough. Dad’s not around. It was a lot that took a toll on me.

“They see me and think I’m happy because of what I had going on in basketball, but when basketball was over with, no one was concerned about after basketball. I showed happiness, but when I left, it was pain. I never felt like at that high point.”

‘Rock bottom’ and a return

The lowest moments came once Moy elected to leave Memphis in 2002, hoping to rid himself of hometown distractions. First came a junior college stop at Eastern Oklahoma State, and when that didn’t work out, he moved to Lincoln, Neb. The plan was to eventually play at Nebraska.

Instead, he said, “That’s when everything went south.”

In May 2003, Moy was arrested and charged with first-degree sexual assault in Lincoln. A female alleged that Moy raped her. Moy, 21 years old at the time, insisted the incident was consensual and that he’d been with the female for two months. But he didn’t know she was 15 and eventually plead guilty to a reduced charge.

Moy didn’t get released from prison until May 11, 2006.

“Rock bottom was when I got sentenced,” said Moy, who still contends his innocence. “When he told me I was going to prison, I never had one thought in my mind that I was going to go to prison.”

Though he became a star in the prison’s basketball league, legal issues continued to derail his professional dreams. Back in Memphis, Moy surfaced briefly at Division III LeMoyne-Owen. But since 2009, he has twice been convicted on domestic assault charges and spent a total of 38 days in prison, according to Shelby County online court records. He also has a pending felony charge from last February for possession of marijuana with intent to manufacture, deliver or sell. 

So for the most part, “T-Head” folklore is now mostly confined to memories of him splashing 3-pointers in front of packed crowds waiting to see what he might do next.

Those weekly games with the best basketball players from Memphis, many of whom got where Moy couldn't, keep the dream alive ever so slightly. But he’s also coming to terms with why it never happened for him.

Moy wishes he had more mentors around during those high school days, when he couldn’t seem to miss on the court, but nobody got through to him that there’s more to basketball than a good shot.

He repeats this message often with the youth he’s now working with on South Memphis basketball courts, showing them how to shoot like he does and “how easy it is for them to get in trouble.”

It’s why he’s just as intrigued as everyone else that once followed “T-Head” by what awaits in the theater Thursday night.

“I think I have an interesting story that a lot of people can look at and read about, take notes from, and try not to make the wrong turns,” Moy said.

What: The Memphis premiere of "The Star That Never Shined"
When: Thursday, 7 p.m.
Where: Studio on the Square
Tickets: $15; can be purchased at the door, on eventbrite.com or by calling (901)-493-1112