Before Melvin Gordon and Trae Waynes were starters at Bradford High School in Kenosha Wisconsin, Gary Acchione a former SU player identified them as special players.
Bradford is the 2nd largest school in Wisconsin and at any given time has 6 future D1 players on their squad.
Gary talked Syracuse up so much that the best friends wanted him to escort them to SU so they could check it out for themselves. Gary notified the staff that these kids were special. In fact he went so far as stating that Melvin was #44 worthy. Mel came from a two parent family that emphasized academics and staying away from trouble. Melvin was an honors student. Trae had track speed.
The trip was before the start of their junior seasons.
When they arrived at Syracuse Marrone wouldn't give them the time of day. At the time the philosophy was that SU wanted football alums to let them know of special players they had influence on. Both of these kids were recruited hard by Brent Belima but both wanted to get away from Wisconsin.
Melvin fell in love with the Ernie Davis Heisman and all of the other ED related things he saw. They had to drag him away.
When they got back home Gordon asked his head coach if they could watch the Express as a team building thing.
As the season started and the two players got game time as juniors they started to blow up. Still repeated calls to SU went ignored. I made contact with staff and was told we are all set at running back we have Tyree Smallwood.
By the end of the season Gordon had 13 major offers. Finally SU offered...too late. Melvins coach felt SU had disrespected the players and their program. He told parents of the better players how we disrespected Gordon and Waynes who came to SU on their own dime.
Eventually, Melvin committed to Iowa. He went to the OSU-Iowa game where OSU won with a last second field goal. A fist fight broke out between players and coaches in the Iowa locker room. Shortly thereafter he de-committed. While his recruitment opened up we offered again. This time he decided to stick closer to home and chose Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, concerning Trae Waynes, after giving up on our staff Gary turned to an SU alum and former teammate Dave Warner who was at Michigan State. Might as well keep the kid in the family. Gary told Dave that he tried his best to get our alma mater to offer Trae with no luck.
Warner jumped on it because he respected Gary's opinion. The next week Waynes was invited to an MSU camp where he blew it up. An offer was made on the spot.
The moral to the story is if you ask football alums to keep an eye out for talent before everyone else knows about them treat them with respect. In this case you lost out on a potential #44 who is a Heisman candidate and 1st round projection for 2015 and you lost out on a top notch DB who is also a projected 1st round pick as a junior.
