A silent echo of static took a backseat to background pop music and loud shouts in Mary Jean Irving Memorial Gym Monday afternoon.

“Ball! Ball! Ball!” As loud as they could, Natchez girls basketball players ran a drill, communicating in motion so each of them knew exactly where the other is. The drill involved three players at a time and focused on breaking a press. The most effective way in doing so is through communication.

“Stop,” Natchez head coach Alphaka Moore instructed the fourth wave of three. “I’m talking normal, and I’m louder than y’all.”

In order to replace a legendary basketball figure like Mary Jean Irving and an integral influence like Sue Johnson who followed, Natchez High School needed to find someone loud, borderline abrasive and absolutely, positively unapologetic. These are the qualities that have made Moore an instant success. They’re also the same qualities that landed her the job in 2012, despite being 24 years old with limited experience.

With one year of coaching experience — coaching one season at Union High School — Moore threw her name in the hat for the vacancy at Natchez, not expecting anything to come out of it. To her surprise, she received an interview, but she felt far from welcomed when she sat opposite of then athletic director Fred Butcher and then head football coach Lance Reed.

“I was so nervous I asked my mom to come with me,” Moore said. “Then, it felt like they didn’t even want us there. I remember Butcher was frowning the whole time. They slammed a 50-page questionnaire down in front of me and asked me to fill it out. I think they were trying to see if they could intimidate me.”

Luckily for the future of Natchez, they didn’t. Instead, Moore was brash and downright fiery in her second interview.

“I’ve always thought like an athlete,” Moore said. “So when all of that happened, I said, ‘No, you’re not going to intimidate me.’ I walked in for that next visit, and I conducted the interview. I told them, ‘If you don’t think I could handle it, why would you have asked me to come?’”

The response from Moore drew a positive reaction.

“We were very impressed with her in the interviews,” said Butcher after Moore was hired.

Getting hired was just the beginning for Moore, who was less than a decade older than most of the girls she coached at Natchez. The team was reluctant to change, giving Moore a difficult adjustment period.

“She was way more harsh back then,” remembered senior Rashonae Rice, who was taking a break at practice while Moore ran the point, teaching a new zone defense and talking some friendly trash in the scrimmage. “I think she didn’t want us to run over her.”

Through the years, Moore won her team’s respect and was able to connect with them in a way they hadn’t experienced from a coach before.

“She just knows how to relate to us,” said Rice 10 minutes after Moore gave a speech where she compared the girls to Power Rangers and drew chuckles from a winded group. “She gets on us, but she also gets in there with us and is active.”

Through time, Moore proved her doubters wrong. An MHSAA Class 5A state title in 2014 solidified Moore’s ability to coach a team at her young age.

What has helped Moore and her team succeed together is Moore’s sometimes-brutal honesty. She’s real with her players, and her players respond positively to it. And the fascinating aspect to that is no player is off limits to receiving criticism. Heck, one of the best players in the state, preseason Dandy Dozen selection and the reigning 2014 All-Metro Player of the Year Zyaire Ewing, was benched after the first quarter just a week ago after she wasn’t executing the way Moore wanted her to.

Any coach that’s willing to sit her best player to teach a lesson isn’t afraid of much. If Moore’s journey to Natchez and winning results that followed have taught us anything, it’s that her fearlessness is unique.

So if you believe a potential back-to-back state championship run intimidates Natchez, well, you need to learn Moore.