Ahmad Rashād (born Robert Earl Moore on November 19, 1949) is an American sportscaster (mostly with NBC Sports) and former professional football player. He was the fourth overall selection of the 1972 NFL Draft, taken by the St. Louis Cardinals.

An All-American running back and wide receiver from Oregon known as Bobby Moore,
Rashād was converted back to wide receiver while with the Cardinals, where he played for two seasons. He then played for the Buffalo Bills (1974), and most notably, the Minnesota Vikings (1976–1982), where he earned four Pro Bowl selections from 1978 to 1981.

Biography

In 1972 Rashād converted from Pentecostalism to a small sect, United Submitters International which has unorthodox Islamic views. He legally adopted his current name, which means "admirable one led to truth" in Arabic, a year later. The name change was not well received by many Cardinals fans. His last name comes from his former mentor, Rashad Khalifa, founder of the Submitters, who was assassinated in 1990. Rashād explained to a reporter in 1981 that his religious views were never akin to those of the Nation of Islam, or so-called "Black Muslims." He explained, "As far as I was concerned the Black Muslims were a racist sect, the same to me as the Ku Klux Klan, or anything that was exclusive to one race."

Rashād has been married and divorced four times. In 1969, he married his first wife Deidre Waters. They had a daughter, Keva, born in 1970. He also has a son, Sean, born in 1970. In 1976, he married his second wife, Matilda Johnson. They had two children, daughter Maiyisha (born in 1976) and son Ahmad Jr. (born in 1978). They divorced in 1979.

In 1985, Rashād married Cosby Show actress Phylicia Ayers-Allen, to whom he proposed on national television during the pregame show of NBC's broadcast of the Thanksgiving Day football game between the Detroit Lions and the New York Jets. It was the third marriage for both. Unlike many actresses, she adopted her husband's surname (shortly after the wedding), and has kept the professional name "Phylicia Rashād" ever since. Out of this marriage, he gained a stepson Billy Bowles (born 1973). After a year of marriage, Ahmad and Phylicia had a daughter, Condola Phylea Rashād, named after his mother. In 2001, after nearly sixteen years of marriage, Ahmad and Phylicia divorced.

In 2007, Rashād wed his fourth wife, Sale Johnson (ex-wife of Woody Johnson, Johnson & Johnson billionaire heir and New York Jets owner). He gained three step-daughters from this marriage: Casey Johnson (1979–2010), Jamie Johnson (b. 1982), and Daisy Johnson (b. 1987). They adopted Sale Johnson's granddaughter, Ava-Monroe (born August 14, 2006), then divorced in 2013.