Ford worked his way up the coaching ladder

By Berry Tramel

Published: April 17, 2008

Travis Ford was a Kentucky high school star. Little white guy who rarely missed a shot and never missed a free throw. Sort of a Bluegrass Keiton Page.

Then he became a Kentucky hoops legend. A 5-foot-9 sharpshooter who in a UK Final Four season made more than 50 percent of his 3-pointers and 88 percent of his foul shots, a point guard who is No. 2 on the Kentucky single-season assist list.

That kind of ballplaying is appreciated in most ports. In a hoops haven like Kentucky, that kind of ballplaying is revered.

So when Ford, at the age of 26, decided to try coaching, he didn't have to start out coaching high school JV in Bowling Green. He spent a year just watching Rick Pitino at Kentucky, then got a college head-coaching job without ever spending a minute as an assistant.

But here's why I like Oklahoma State's hiring of Ford to be sheriff of Gallagher-Iba Arena: He had a big name, entered the profession with silver sneakers on his feet, and still he worked his way up.

Campbellsville University, an NAIA school of little more than 2,000 students. Eastern Kentucky, which hadn't sniffed hardwood success since the 1970s. And finally Massachusetts, which was a force when John Calipari coached the Minutemen but at no other time.

UMass can rate as big time, but at Campbellsville and Eastern Kentucky, you ride a lot of buses to Pikeville, Ky., and Montgomery, W.Va., and Clarksville, Tenn. That's a long way from the Big Blue royalty of Kentucky basketball.

"He can coach anywhere,” said Eddie Ford, Travis' father and director of Kentucky HoopFest, a huge summer basketball tournament in Louisville. "If you can coach, you can coach.”

Time will tell if Stillwater qualifies as anywhere. But Ford's track record says OSU athletic director Mike Holder has to be given a thumbs-up for landing Ford.

No Bill Self. No Billy Gillispie. But at every stop, Ford has made the basketball program better, much better, than how he found it.

"Travis, he will never ever get outworked,” said Keith Adkins, hired by Ford as a Campbellsville assistant and now the head coach of the NAIA power, which lost to Oklahoma City U. in the 2008 national semifinals.

"That can be evidenced by his playing days. Oklahoma State's getting a heck of a coach and a heck of a guy. It won't take him long to get that thing rolling.”

Campbellsville was a solid NAIA program. Ford's last two seasons there, 1999 and 2000, produced records of 28-3 and 23-11, the latter team making the NAIA national tournament. And today, Campbellsville remains an NAIA power.

Eastern Kentucky won the 1971 All-College Tournament, and OSU officials were so enamored, they hired EKU coach Guy Strong to take over the Cowboys. Strong didn't work out, of course, and Eastern struggled, too, for 30 years. In the two years before Ford's arrival, the Colonels went 9-44.

Ford's record at Eastern, 61-80, makes you wince. But Ford built up the Colonels and won the 2005 Ohio Valley title. More impressive, in their first NCAA appearance since 1979, Eastern Kentucky gave mighty Kentucky a scare, losing 72-64.

"He put Eastern Kentucky back on the map,” said Austin Newton, a senior captain on that 2005 team. "Put Travis on the map as a coach.”

Newton was a non-scholarship player who became a starter after Ford trimmed the roster. "It was pretty bad,” Newton said. "They say that first year was brutal. What he did in five years, people didn't give him enough credit for it.”

They did in Kentucky, after the first-round NCAA Tournament game in Indianapolis, where UK took a 17-point lead on Eastern Kentucky, before the Colonels rallied to within five points in the final minutes.

That earned Ford the job at UMass, where Steve Lappas had gone 50-65 in four seasons. Ford's teams went 13-15, 24-9 and 25-11. All the latter two seasons earned UMass was the NIT, which is one reason a coach jumps to a school like OSU.

Eddie Sutton always said OSU was a hard job, and maybe he was right. But it sounds like Holder hired a guy willing to roll up his sleeves, silver sneakers and all.

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