COLUMBIA, Mo. • T.J. Moe was 2 years old when his parents yanked the training wheels off his red bike.

"We noticed almost right away that he wasn't really leaning back and forth and using them a whole lot," said Moe's father, Dave. "That gave us a pretty good indication."

Indications both of his athleticism and an intrepid spirit that seems to run in the family, evident in a father who once high-jumped 6 feet 9 inches and older brother Scotty now doing humanitarian work in strife-torn Somalia.

Through the years, T.J. Moe seldom was encumbered with anything resembling the cushion or caution of training wheels again.

Even when circumstances might have hindered him — a hyper-extended elbow his junior year at Fort Zumwalt West, a torn labrum and foot injury that went undiagnosed his senior year — Moe continued not only to play but thrive.

"Resilient is quite an understatement," Fort Zumwalt West coach Paul Day said, adding, "He was just so tough he never even said a word."

All of which made 2009 tormenting to Moe.

A combination of moving to the collegiate level at Mizzou, rehabilitating the foot injury and contending with the move from quarterback to receiver in MU's elaborate offensive scheme left him emotionally handcuffed perhaps for the first time in his life.

"I really didn't see T.J., we really didn't see T.J., last year," MU receivers coach Andy Hill said.

A "fish out of water," Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel called him.

Unaccustomed to being uncomfortable, Moe doubted himself and managed just two catches for eight yards, both in the second game against Furman.

"When you're a quarterback, you look at the whole game straight in the face," he said. "As a wide receiver, you've got to see from different angles. It takes time to get used to it."

For a snapshot of the fundamental difference from then to now, consider Moe's 7-yard touchdown reception in MU's 23-13 opening victory over Illinois at the Edward Jones Dome.

"There's always spots you've got to find," he said. "Some people just have a good feel for where it's at, and I'd like to think I'm one of those people."

The play, one of Moe's 13 catches, was the same call that led to Moe dropping a pass against Illinois last year.

"Last year, I didn't sleep one second after the Illinois game, I was so upset," Moe said.

As opposite as the moments were, they were linked by a common denominator: The touchdown came because Moe kept moving, in this case in tandem with quarterback Blaine Gabbert rolling left after the initial patterns broke down.

Just like Moe never stopped trying to improve himself after his drop a year before.

"That's really what motivated me all throughout spring ball and summer ball and … conditioning," Moe said.

To the point of obsessiveness.

"He's not messing around about being good," Hill said.

In fact, Moe's first words Monday were about the three or four things he has to work on, from getting lined up faster to blocking better and shedding jams quicker.

"That's exactly the way he is," Dave Moe said.

Now more than ever.

Moe invested deeply in the offseason in everything from conditioning to the MU playbook to getting tips from former MU receiver Tommy Saunders to his nutrition to psychology.

He'd always had a baseline for the mental game, the concept of "garbage in, garbage out," as his father put it. But through Mizzou's sports psychology program fostered by outgoing track coach Rick McGuire he explored it more deeply.

That's why when he woke up jittery at 5:30 a.m., six hours before kickoff Saturday, he easily calmed himself.

"All I could say to myself was 'nothing matters because I control everything,' " said Moe, who recalled being at peace before kickoff and completely in his element as the game went on. "All I'd do was stick my hands up, and it would stick."

Even after he got stuck a few times, twice losing his helmet and requiring stitches below his chin.

"I didn't even know I was bleeding," he said, smiling. "I finally got a new helmet, though."

Moe first put on a football helmet when he was 7, forsaking a budding roller hockey career, and he soared in the sport virtually from that point on with his father sharing the experience as one of his coaches through the end of high school.

But like his four siblings, Moe was raised to be more than just an athlete by parents Dave and Becky, who met in church in upstate Illinois and attended a Christian college in Indiana.

The school, Taylor University, was represented in their fourth child's name, Taylor Jacob, when they were trying to determine what names would work best with the initials T.J.

Their view of the world makes them wary but proud of the work their oldest boy is doing now in Somalia, where Dave Moe said Scotty feels called to do humanitarian work.

Even as he is surrounded by armed guards, Scotty Moe decided recently to suspend his accounting career and stay on indefinitely.

"I told him in an e-mail the other day, 'I can't say I'm super-excited about that, but I'm really glad that you feel this is where you want to be,' " said Dave Moe, a local businessman.

As for his youngest son's place, T.J. had a 4.0 grade-point average in high school, where he not only distinguished himself as a terrific athlete but also proved to be a role model who volunteered for drug testing and served on mission trips to Mexico and Kentucky.

"He's not ever going to be around the wrong crowd," Day said. "He's always going to do what's right."

On the field, that comes with attributes that might not wow the casual observer. Despite rushing and passing for 61 touchdowns and more than 4,500 yards his senior year at Zumwalt West, Moe stands about 6 foot, weighs around 200 pounds and believes his father still is faster than he is.

Told that Moe said he runs the 40-yard dash in 4.9 seconds, MU offensive coordinator Dave Yost smiled and said, "I think he's faster than that" but noted that it's Moe's quickness, savvy and grit that set him apart.

Moe holds the MU record in the shuttle run, Yost said, a trait that enables him to be 'special" in making cuts and "getting in and out of breaks."

"And he's such a strong guy," Yost said. "You can kind of lean on him. He's going to take a pounding in there, but he wants the ball in his hands and he's used to being tackled."

And used to getting back up, too, just like he did from 2009 into 2010.

"He popped right up, didn't he?" said Hill, speaking of Moe's bounce-back after getting smashed Saturday but also inadvertently of Moe's broader emergence.

With the training wheels off again, Moe's 13-catch game may only be a glimpse of what's ahead.

"That's really kind of just the beginning of him," Pinkel said.