Just a wondering as I read previous threads on FSP and Tracy Ford. I don’t know Tracy Ford personally but I wonder if all of the hate and criticism levied his way is about his program personally or the fairly new influence that football trainers have on recruiting. It reminds me a lot of the hate people had towards AAU basketball initially. Is it the change away from the influence high school coaches have? Any specific stories of him being a sleaze ball? Of course just about everyone involved in recruiting has their own personal/ selfish reasons for their involvement, that’s a given. I don’t have a dog in this race. Just wondering what others think?
FSP or the impact of football trainers on recruiting?
- Thread starter Coug4life34
- Start date
Good question.
I think any veteran fan should be wary of any adult who makes their living extracting money from parents with the promise of getting their kid to the next level. Tracy Ford maintains a staff of performance coaches, a facility, travel to various college campuses, etc. How all of this is being funded is something of a black hole. Conservatively, it's gonna cost 200k plus to keep the lights on. It's probably more.
I think it smells funny.
I think any veteran fan should be wary of any adult who makes their living extracting money from parents with the promise of getting their kid to the next level. Tracy Ford maintains a staff of performance coaches, a facility, travel to various college campuses, etc. How all of this is being funded is something of a black hole. Conservatively, it's gonna cost 200k plus to keep the lights on. It's probably more.
I think it smells funny.
My Problems with Tracy Ford are the foliowing for the then following reasons.
1. Tracy Ford BAD MOUTHS WSU, Makes WSU look bad.
Now that doesnt necessarily have to be a bad thing, but since Tracy Ford has a LOT of POWER, MONEY, INFLUENCE, PERCEIVED(Not really credible)CREDIBILITY with Parents, Players, HS coaches, Local Media, etc, him BAD MOUTHING WSU IS A PROBLEM FOR WSU.
2. The reason and timing of him Bad Mouthing WSU, makimg WSU, HC's look bad.
If WSU takes Tracy Ford's 1.5 star, 2 star, 2.5 star, Whitworth, Big Sky level recruits, kids, and proceeds to have Paul Wulf results, like Paul Wulf took his Whitworth kids, and went 9-40, then Tracy Ford praises, defends Paul Wulf, WSU.
But then if WSU, Doba, Leach, dont take his Big Sky kids, then he Bad Mouths Doba, WSU, Leach, etc, and makes them look bad. And turns the Parents, Players, HS coaches, Media, Politicians, turns up the heat, pressure, etc, to try to get WSU to take his Big Sky kids.
THATS DIRTY.
3. He brags, takes credit for WSU or any other program developing his kids.
4. He only pushes, sends 4 star kids to UW, etc, and Big Sky kids to WSU, instead of sending Big Sky kids to the Big Sky.
5. I have seen, read a lot of twitter trail tweets from a LOT of credible parents, teachers, players, coaches, etc, that have not only TRADHED Tracy Ford, but provided credible links to credible semi proofs of Tracy Fords Sleaziness.
6. Tracy Ford has too much Power, Money, Influence in HS, College recruiting.
1. Tracy Ford BAD MOUTHS WSU, Makes WSU look bad.
Now that doesnt necessarily have to be a bad thing, but since Tracy Ford has a LOT of POWER, MONEY, INFLUENCE, PERCEIVED(Not really credible)CREDIBILITY with Parents, Players, HS coaches, Local Media, etc, him BAD MOUTHING WSU IS A PROBLEM FOR WSU.
2. The reason and timing of him Bad Mouthing WSU, makimg WSU, HC's look bad.
If WSU takes Tracy Ford's 1.5 star, 2 star, 2.5 star, Whitworth, Big Sky level recruits, kids, and proceeds to have Paul Wulf results, like Paul Wulf took his Whitworth kids, and went 9-40, then Tracy Ford praises, defends Paul Wulf, WSU.
But then if WSU, Doba, Leach, dont take his Big Sky kids, then he Bad Mouths Doba, WSU, Leach, etc, and makes them look bad. And turns the Parents, Players, HS coaches, Media, Politicians, turns up the heat, pressure, etc, to try to get WSU to take his Big Sky kids.
THATS DIRTY.
3. He brags, takes credit for WSU or any other program developing his kids.
4. He only pushes, sends 4 star kids to UW, etc, and Big Sky kids to WSU, instead of sending Big Sky kids to the Big Sky.
5. I have seen, read a lot of twitter trail tweets from a LOT of credible parents, teachers, players, coaches, etc, that have not only TRADHED Tracy Ford, but provided credible links to credible semi proofs of Tracy Fords Sleaziness.
6. Tracy Ford has too much Power, Money, Influence in HS, College recruiting.
How much does he charge for influence? Is it more for a LOI signature? During the dead period of no contact with recruits, can you just call Tracy’s phone and he can turn it on speaker or just hand his phone to the kid? Can you run payments through Tracy?
What could possibly go wrong?
Visiting his site, I find it interesting that he has no brag board of kids he's placed at colleges. Regardless, I find the entire industry of preying on naïve parents and athletes hopes and dreams to be deplorable. That being said, caveat emptor.
There’s a lot of things you can make money at legally that I wouldn’t do. Good on you if you can hustle in a business like that, keep yourself clean, and make some money. College football is a dirty business as is so hard to believe you could run a program like that without getting your hands dirty. I’m sure he’s got some side hustles built in to his business that are unsavory but damn near impossible to detect. At the end of the day a kid and his family are going to make a decision based on their eyes and ears, and a school is going to make an offer based on tape and ability, and I don’t think TF has much to do with any of that.
For the record, AAU in hoops is dirty AF too. Pay to play in general is trash and should be treated as such.
For the record, college football and basketball are occasionally shown to be "dirty AF" too. Yet we still devote ourselves to following our teams.
I think its amazing how things have changed. Families paying upwards to 10s of thousands each year for there kids to be in AAU tournaments, AAU and High School coaches working together to run similar systems and funnel kids to each programs often making it impossible for non club kids to play school sports, parent hoping that their money, time and effort will be rewarded by their kids getting a scholarships, etc. I understand why it happens, but the whole thing feels wrong with me. But then I have never experience it as a parent.
I agree with both of you, which is why I asked the question.. The one thing I have not heard is instances where Tracy Ford has made dirty dealings that someone is willing to attest to.. I am certainly not defending him, but I think it is very dangerous and truly a sad statement of amateur sports in general when the assumption is that any program having success has to be cheating or getting their hands dirty. While I don’t disagree, I hate that association when I hear people make it without evidence. I am a huge advocate for believing the system itself needs to be overhauled. As a parent with a high school athlete, we all have to recognize that these types of training programs be it basketball, football, or baseball infinitely increase your child’s ability to get a scholarship, so they are hard to avoid for someone who has that goal.. Hopefully, as someone stated earlier they choose wisely. Buyer beware… Im just not sure there are very many programs of this ilk that are not engaged in these same dealings on a smaller scale.. It’s simply, part of the system.
If you wanna see a guy that does it the right way…. a coach/trainer that KNOWS what he is doing…. gets results across all sports, all body types, both genders and all ages….. garagestrength on IG.
He is tip top. Might be the best strength coach in America.
He is tip top. Might be the best strength coach in America.
Not so totally different, in my mind. More like different sides of the same coin. But that’s just my opinion.
If WSU shows itself to be dirty AF, I'll stop following the teams. But they seem to be trying to compete at a high level possible and are trying to follow the rules.
No kidding. If we ever go to the “AF” level, I’m out as well.
I’m speaking more in generalities with the college sports world.
Of course mamy…err….a lot…..err…. some…..schools toe the line Pretty well on a consistent basis. But there’s not one major college that hasn’t at least occasionally pushed the envelope to some extent. Maybe not consistently, or to a major degree, or even intentionally. But, it still happens to the “best of us”.
And then there are examples of envelopes of cash spilling open at UPS facilities (Kentucky hoops some years ago), players getting paid for summer jobs where they never show up, get “loans” from rich fans (has Billy Joe been that long ago?), Chip Kelley and Pete Carroll both got out of dodge just ahead of scandals, the SEC makes a lifestyle out of shady things. Miller at Zona hoops….talk about a sleaze making millions of bucks!
You read some of the recent stuff on ASU’s boards and their attitude towards the potential football recruiting violations so far described, seems for the most part to be “so what? We aren’t the only ones.“ And further, a seeming majority of them expressed expectations that they should “do whatever it takes to be successful”. Maybe that’s just my take, from scanning their sites? But it is an interesting attitudinal mindset by a fair number of their message board posters. Does that really reflect overall attitudes? IDK?
Bottom line to what I’m trying to (badly) get across - one has to be pretty naive not to be aware that college sports can be “dirty AF”. And it’s not just rare and isolated, though I DO think schools like WSU try hard to do the right thing, typically.
I honestly feel the AAU craxp, the other (football trainer/influencer) “pay to play” stuff and the sleaze that occurs in college hoops and football, are all “different manifestations of the same illness“, IMHO. Not exactly the same things. But different sides of the same coin.
I’d be annoyed and expect a cleanup on aisle 9, but I wouldn’t be done. I don’t pretend WSUs immune to it because we are high and mighty though. We have a hard enough time keeping up with the coaching and facilities arms races and still being in the black, let alone paying guys like TF to push players our way. The sad reality is we will always be battling schools who are capable of and from time to time will use their financial resources to break the rules (ie UW, USC, Oregon). But that’s also what makes us love WSU and hate those schools is that we’ve got to do it the hard way and not take shortcuts.
If WSU was gonna pay a guy to send kids to WSU, better be from SoCal where the talent is. Not the Puget Sound.
Mik… am I missing something . What’s the issue with Ford? Have you ever been involved in AAU sports ?
