Friday Night Lights
EDMOND — Trace Ford enjoys the craziness that surrounds him each day.
There’s school at Edmond Santa Fe High. Football practice follows. Trips across town to see one little sister on a softball field. He sometimes shuttles another to a practice or an appointment. He periodically has his own orthodontist appointment.
His parents have already cared for their baby grandson most of the day. A different daughter has a softball game elsewhere.
Then it starts all over again.
Friday can’t come soon enough. That’s the easy day for the 11-member family Ford helps guide much like the Wolves’ defense.
“They’re always gone, I’m always home alone and then I’m always taking people out to practices and stuff,” Ford said. “But it’s cool. It’s fun having a lot of sisters and brothers. More entertainment in the house.”
In a time where large families are built for reality TV, Ford and his family are nothing but real.
There are nine children with Trace nestled in the middle. Four older and four younger siblings. Their father, Shaun, is a stay-at-home dad while their mom, Desirae, is a full-time nurse practitioner.
A huge family was never the plan, but it’s become the driving force behind the rapid rise of one of the state’s top players.
Trace is a 6-foot-2. 225-pound star defensive end and linebacker at Edmond Santa Fe. On Friday, he’ll announce his commitment to Arkansas, Baylor or Oklahoma State at a school assembly. Hours later, the Wolves will open the season at rival Edmond North.
The next step on Ford’s wild and unpredictable journey will have been decided. The entire family will cheer him the whole way. He’s learned independence, moving from a promising baseball career to possible dynamic college football player.
“We’re making our own path as we speak,” Ford said. “I don’t know how the process works, but we’re figuring it out as the day goes on. Everything I’m pretty much figuring out as we go on.”
Old-school ‘Little House on the Prairie’
Shaun and Desirae met in 1995 working together at a restaurant and wasted little time forming a relationship.
He already had three children — two boys and a girl — and Desirae was willing to add more. But there was no way to predict six more children.
Destin was the couple’s first child together. Now 19, he graduated from Edmond Santa Fe a year early and is studying at Central Oklahoma. Trace follows, then there’s 15-year-old Tawny, a catcher on Santa Fe’s softball team. Willa is 12, Hayley is 9 and Kiera is 6, and all play softball.
Each and every one of them work together to keep the family on track.
Shaun has been the stay-at-home dad for a decade now, walking away from his job at a bank to make sure their kids were raised outside of day care.
He cooks, cleans, handles the laundry, pays the bills and more.
“I have a lot of respect for stay-at-home moms now,” he said. “You don’t just get to watch judge shows. There’s a lot of work.”
Trace is the big brother who provides guidance, transportation and oldfashioned fun he picked up from his older siblings. Tawny even styles her sisters’ hair.
They’ve all passed on softball lessons to Kiera, a budding T-ball star.
“It’s like the old-school ‘Little House on the Prairie’ where the oldest takes care of the one under that one and that one takes care of the one under that one,” Shaun Ford said. “It worked out well for the older folks back then and there’s a place for it now, too. It teaches them responsibility. It fortifies the bond between siblings.”
Self-responsibility
Trace Ford was supposed to be a baseball player.
He had played since he was 4 and never really considered football until middle school. He still wavered on his commitment. But last year he entered a varsity game at defensive tackle and immediately dominated. An Oklahoma Baptist coach spoke with Ford following the game.
Arizona State then messaged him. Texas State followed.
“I thought maybe I had a shot,” Ford said. “I started working out every day, not playing around, doing all of the drills right, doing all of the little things.”
Ford’s recruiting exploded alongside his dominance. But with a large family, he sometimes had to drive himself to college campuses or camps.
In July, he went to Baylor’s recruiting barbecue with his older sister, Destiny, her baby son and both Hayley and Kiera. They were all featured in recruiting photos.
One Baylor coach even lightheartedly told Hayley that if Trace committed elsewhere, he would lose his job.
Ford didn’t take that seriously in his decision. He will commit to a Division I school knowing his path is unique and his future resides on a football field because of his large family.
“I think it’s encouraged independence,” Desirae said. “We’ve never coddled them on anything. If he came to us, we told him to fix his attitude. It was up to him.”