Last week saw a few family members travel to Albuquerque, NM to see Trav play his first-ever collegiate football game. Jake, Shawn, Corey, and O'Malley represented the Moore-Messner Clann in attendance at the University of New Mexico Lobo's home stadium. This week, January 12, 2026, most of the entire clann and friends showed up at Central Michigan University's Kelly/Shorts stadium before 19,005 fans, the largest CMU home opener since 2015.
Jake loaded up the Family suburban and was in Mount Pleasant at 8 AM for a 1 PM game in order to have his choice of Illg spots and lot 63 E. At 8 AM Jake was third in line so I had a whole field to choose where he was going to set up our tailgating. At 10:50 AM Shannon, Tracy, MacKelle, Malek, myself, and Shannon's friend Jessica, who just recently moved back home to Michigan, and several of her friends stood outside the Marriott hotel, where the CMU football teams spends their Friday nights before home games, to watch the football team walk over to the stadium at 10:50 AM. It was a real tearjerker to see Trav step out of line and walk over and give us mother a hug and a kiss and then get back in with his 104 other team members and continue on into the stadium. There was a steady stream of familiar faces and faces that I haven't seen in quite some time at the tailgate. Diane and Shirley drove all the way from commerce Township to be there along with Karlee and Seth, Michael and Monica, Mo and Donna, Wendy and her husband Dale, John and Kathy Pavlik and their two sons, the Filipaks, Mike and Carrie, just to name a few. The two hours pregame were filled with lots of talk hugs handshakes, and laughs. It was a great time. At about 12:45 p.m. we took this short walk to get our seats in the south end zone of the stadium. When a mixed feeling of pride and love to see Trav come running out ont
Two weeks ago, a few of us traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to watch Trav play his first-ever collegiate football game. Jake, Shawn, Corey, and O'Malley represented the Moore-McCloskey Clann at the University of New Mexico's home stadium. This past Saturday, September 12, 2026, nearly the entire clann — plus a long list of friends — showed up at Central Michigan University's Kelly/Shorts Stadium, where 19,005 fans made it the largest CMU home opener since 2015.
Jake loaded up the family Suburban and was in Mount Pleasant by 8:00 AM for a 1:00 PM game so he'd have his pick of spots in Lot 63E. He was third in line, which meant he had an entire field to choose from for our tailgate. At 10:50 AM, Shannon, Tracy, MacKelle, Malek, and I stood outside the Marriott — where the CMU football team spends its Friday nights before home games — along with Shannon's friend Jessica, who recently moved back home to Michigan, and several of her friends. We were there to watch the team make its walk over to the stadium. It was a real tearjerker when Trav stepped out of line, walked over to give his mother a hug and a kiss, then fell back in with his 104 teammates and kept going.
The tailgate brought a steady stream of familiar faces, including some we hadn't seen in far too long. Diane and Shirley drove all the way from Commerce Township. Karlee and Seth were there, along with Michael and Monica, Mo and Donna, Wendy and her husband Dale, John and Kathy Pavlik and their two sons, the Filipaks, and Mike and Carrie — just to name a few. Those two hours before kickoff were full of talk, hugs, handshakes, and laughter. It was a great time. At about 12:45 PM we made the short walk to our seats in the south end zone, and I felt a mix of pride and love watching Trav come running out onto that field in the middle of all that humanity.
Most people never see what actually goes into preparing for a football season — the stress, the pressure, the concentration, and the bruises. That preparation starts in January and only grows in complexity and time commitment through spring practice, preseason practice, and finally game-week practice. Most of those are twelve-hour days. And then there are the expectations: the expectations of family and friends, of teammates past and present, of coaches past and present, and most of all, the expectations Trav sets for himself.
Trav's high school career was one success after another. He was named to the all-area teams, the all-state teams, the dream teams, and Lansing area football player of the year. He did all of that on Thursday and Friday nights. What very few people saw were the other days of the week — the intense effort, the workouts, and the standards he held himself to. He was his own biggest motivator and his own harshest critic. His self-expectations were so high that not many athletes could keep up with him. And if you were ever at one of his games, he sure made it look easy. Every Friday night, Trav was one of the last players to leave the field, because so many family members and friends wanted to tell him how much they loved him — as a football player, but even more as a human being.
None of the expectations and goals Trav set in high school got left behind. He brought all of them with him to Central Michigan. He was so impressive in the pre-spring workouts that the seniors and the rest of the team voted him the hardest-working player in the weight room and the conditioning room. His coaches raved about him. But the quality I find most impressive is that with all of that success, and all of those expectations from himself and everyone who knows him, Trav remained the most humble and grateful person you could ever meet. To hear him tell it, it was never about him. It was about his offensive line, or his coaches, or his mother and father and the support they gave him from an early age. You never heard him talk about himself. And yet his teammates and coaches saw his leadership anyway, and made him a captain. In every big game of his high school career, it was Trav who stepped up, put the team on his back, and made sure the Panthers had more points on the scoreboard than their opponent when the clock hit zero.
I tell you all of this because it's true, but also to put the new challenges Trav is facing into perspective. In a lot of ways he's a freshman in high school all over again — at the bottom of the food chain, like every freshman is. The players are bigger, faster, and stronger than anything he saw in high school. The playbook is an encyclopedia compared to what he ran before. The smallest details matter and show up in execution. Every step and movement at practice is on video and gets reviewed afterward by coaches and players. Nothing escapes the camera — every mistake and every success is there for the whole team to see. On top of that, there's learning to take criticism from coaches and teammates, and leaving behind the comfortable nest of the buddies you grew up with from elementary school through graduation to start all over again. Expecting any freshman to simply pick up where he left off in high school is not realistic.
Trav told me he had one goal for this season: to "make the bus." Slightly more than sixty players travel to away games, and that was the number he set his sights on. He made the bus to Albuquerque. That alone was a major achievement, and he got into the game for one play. This past week, in his second game, Trav played five snaps. For a freshman, that is a tremendous accomplishment. In my many years of coaching football, freshmen rarely see the varsity field, and there's a reason for that. So Trav has not only reached the goal he set for this season — his work ethic and his attitude are earning him more and more playing time.
And I'd say that every one of you reading these lines has a share in that success, because of the support and encouragement you've given him his whole life. It takes a village to raise a child. Thanks to Trav's village, he's well on his way.
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