The Curious Case of Tramonda Moore
T ramonda Moore doesn’t want to be a cautionary tale. He doesn’t want to be the four-star recruit who becomes a bust. Or the big-time football player who was derailed by poor academics. Or the junior-college player who falls off the radar.
But he knows the possibility still exists.
On Signing Day 2016, Moore was the best recruit in Oklahoma and one of the best in the country. Despite reports a few days earlier that he would have to play junior college football because of low grades and test scores, he signed with Oklahoma State.
Cowboy coach Mike Gundy said he expected Moore to arrive in the summer and didn’t know anything about reports to the contrary.
Moore, though, didn’t make it to Stillwater. Instead, he went to Independence Community College in the extreme southeast corner of Kansas. It’s a long way from anywhere and an even longer way from bigtime college football.
But Moore plans to make it there eventually.
“I’m just going to keep working,” he said. “Can’t wait to get there.”
The uncertainty that swirled around him on Signing Day 2016 created a curious case. Why did OSU sign him and use a scholarship if he was headed for junior-college ball? Why did Gundy say the Cowboys expected Moore to be there in June when only a couple months later he signed with Independence? Did Moore ever have a chance to be a Cowboy?
Over the months that followed, the question became much simpler — what happened to Tramonda Moore? Here’s what happened. * Tramonda Moore knew throughout his senior year at John Marshall High School that he needed to climb out of a huge academic hole.
Coaches and teammates had told him when he was younger that he had a chance to play college football. He was on his way to being 6-foot-4, 350-pound mountain of an offensive lineman, but he didn’t believe football was his future.
“I ain’t going D-I,” he would say. “I ain’t got no looks, no coaches recruiting me.”
He kept his grades high enough to play high school ball, but that was all.
“That,” he acknowledged, “came back to hurt me.”
By the start of his senior year, Moore was being recruited by everyone who’s anyone in college football. Oklahoma. Alabama. On and on the list went.
But his already-low grade point average created a problem. With the NCAA’s sliding scale
combining GPAs and test scores — the lower your GPA, the higher your scores need to be — he was going to have raise his grade point average or his test scores or both to be academically eligible as an incoming player.
He worked with tutors and made some headway. Just not enough. The academic hole he’d dug for himself was too deep, and recruiters started to see the writing on the wall. They backed away. They pulled scholarships. Not OSU. “Oklahoma State has always been in my corner since Day 1,” Moore said, adding that the Cowboys were his first scholarship offer.
On Signing Day, Moore still had a chance to get eligible. It was a long shot, but it was mathematically possible. And because of the way OSU stood beside him, Moore wanted to do right by the Cowboys.
Even though he signed with Independence in April, he went to summer school and even took the ACT one last time in June.
“I was disappointed in myself,” Moore said. “I know a lot of fans were disappointed that I had to go (the junior college) route because I didn’t handle my business in high school.
“It was just basically a wake-up call.”
Mooreis trying to make the most of this second chance. He recognizes that junior-college footballhas chewed up and spit out many a player, guys who go in with good intentions but fail to take care of their business.So, Moore sees his tutors every day, he said. He stays on top of his classwork. He even works ahead when he can.
Moore said that as of now, he is on track to graduate from junior college and get his associate’s degree in December.
“Everybody thinks I’m just a football player,” he said. “I want to show everybody that I can get a 3.0, that I can succeed in the classroom.”
As for the football field, Moore has continued to succeed there. He played every position on the offensive line except center for Independence this past fall. He felt good about his performance, though he did miss some time with a concussion.
There were other hurdles to overcome, too.
“I’ve just got to push myself,” he said. “Wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, go to class, work out, even though I wake up knowing I should be at Oklahoma State.”
Which begs a new question —what will happen to Tramonda Moore? * Tramonda Moore hasn’t reachedmajorcollege football, but by all accounts, he will be eligible to play at that level by this time next year.
And before the summer, he plans to decide and announce where he’ll live out that dream.
“All my love right now, I’m just gonna be honest, is with Oklahoma State,” Moore said. “They’ve been there with me since Day 1 . ... They were my first offer, and they’re still in contact with me. A lot of schools wouldn’t be like that. A lot of schools when they hear you’re going juco, they turn around and are not interested in you anymore.”
Mooreisn’t officially committed to OSU and still has UCLA, Mississippi State and others on his list. But the Cowboys seems as they might eventually reap the benefits of not pulling Moore’s scholarship offer a year ago.
Whatever school hepicks, he plans to have three years of eligibility when he gets there. He said he will redshirt next fall at Independence to maximize his Division-I career.
But even with all the positive signs, all the forward momentum, Moore knows work remains. He has to keep up his grades up. He has to stay focused on his end goal.
He doesn’t want to be an example of what not to do.
He marvels that it’s been a year since he signed his national letter of intent.He still thinks fondly of Signing Day 2016, the blessing that it was, the accomplishment that it signified.
“It’s a big achievement,” he said. “It’s a big step.”
Tramonda Moore just intends to make sure it isn’t the last step on his journey to big-time football, to promises fulfilled, to dreams realized.