TRE TRAYLOR
Lineman Russellville Cyclones
Russellville’s Tre Traylor isn’t satisfied, and that drive to improve will likely pay dividends for him and his Cyclone teammates this season. Playing for a new coaching staff for his senior year, Traylor, a 6-foot, 277-pound two-way starting lineman, said he aims to bury the three-win total of his first two seasons and be a major part of the pouring of a new winning foundation.
“The biggest factor is, I’m not satisfied where I’m at,” he said. “I want to impress coach [Dave] Wheeler, and I also want to make myself to where my body is actually where I want it to be. Right now, I can get more conditioning. I want to keep going until I reach the place I want to go.
“I want to go to the next level, and I know I’ve got to push myself to get there. I want to help everybody. I want to be someone the players around me can depend on.
“I want the team to stick through it no matter what — keep each other’s heads up. I want everybody to stick around, and after we graduate, I want us to pass that torch down to keep it going.”
Wheeler, who arrived in Russellville in January, called Traylor “an awesome kid.”
“The other kids follow him because of what he does on and off the field,” the coach said. “He’s worked for some guys here in town, and they say he’s one of the hardest-working kids they’ve ever had. He does a lot of manual labor with his dad and doesn’t mind the work.
“I just love his attitude, his mentality and how he looks at life.”
The coach said Traylor’s versatility is another of his strengths. He can play any position on the O-line except center.
“I can’t hike to save my life,” Traylor said, chuckling.
“On defense, I play tackle and end. Coach wants to work me everywhere [on the D-line], and whatever he says goes.”
Traylor, who recorded 52 tackles, including 11 for loss, and 6 sacks during an all-state junior campaign, is the River Valley & Ozark Edition Player to Watch for 2021.
Originally from El Dorado, Traylor moved with his family to Russellville in summer 2018 as he was heading into ninth grade. He said the adjustment was made easier by the warm welcome he received from his new teammates.
He hadn’t played defense since peewee football, but he quickly became a two-way player and discovered he loved the defensive side.
“It’s more satisfying to me,” he said. “There are different levels to defense. You beat the man in front of you, and after you do that, you’ve got all these options — you can contain, hit the quarterback, hit the running back, stop the play in the backfield. You can be vocal. You have to be a vocal person. And if you ever make a mistake, it’s easier to make up if you hustle hard.
“And I just like hitting people.”
While his 2018 junior high team finished 7-3, wins have been harder to come by at the varsity level. That has weighed on the psyche of many Cyclones.
“A lot of people give up [in such situations], but our senior class is striving to change that,” Traylor said. “My senior class has a high morale of trying to fix things because we don’t want to disappoint the underclassmen or ourselves. We enjoy the sport, and we do what we need to do.”
Wheeler’s arrival in Pope County in January signaled a fresh start for all the Cyclones.
“From the moment he started talking to us, I could tell he’s about business, and he wants to get stuff done, and he cares,” Traylor said. “Everybody can tell he hates to lose, and he loves effort. When you give a lot of effort, it makes him want to coach you more.
“He has a lot of experience. It’s easy to trust him on what he says and wants us to do.”
It didn’t take long for Wheeler to return the admiration.
“Tre is a very physically gifted kid,” the coach said. “If he was 6-3 or 6-4, he’d probably have every [NCAA Division I] school in this area knocking on his door. It’s a shame they go by height.”
Still, Wheeler is convinced Traylor will play somewhere next year. “He’s going to have some opportunities. What level? We’ll see,” the coach said. “Watching him on film last year, he struggled with being able to play at a high level for very long. You’d see that explosion and ability, but you wouldn’t see it consistently.”
Thus the focus this fall — for all the Cyclones — is on playing consistently at a high level.
“Tre had a great year in the weight room,” Wheeler said. “He’s probably the strongest kid I’ve ever seen squat. I’ve thought about it over and over, and I don’t remember seeing a kid squat 700 pounds. Tre squats 715. He bench-[pressed] 415 and [power]-cleaned 350.
“I’ve had college guys do that, but there ain’t a lot of them. He did it as a junior in high school.”
Traylor’s work in the weight room has also paid dividends for him on the Cyclone wrestling and track and field teams. He throws the shot put and discus and qualified for the state meet in discus this spring.
But his future is football. He has drawn interest from Pittsburg State in Kansas, Arkansas Tech, Harding University, Ouachita Baptist, Henderson State and Northeastern State in Oklahoma.
“At this point, I’m really liking Pitt State, but I’m also waiting to see what happens with other schools,” he said.
He earned a 3.2 grade-point average last year and wants to major in kinesiology. He said he hopes to eventually coach and teach math.
Until then, though, Traylor said he is excited for one more high school season.
“I’m ready to show everybody what we’ve done so far,” he said. “Everybody needs to see the big show.”