In a conversation with his brother Jason and new University of Cincinnati men’s basketball coach Jerrod Calhoun, Kelce explained how he nearly committed to WVU after his visit to Morgantown, West Virginia. Calhoun was an assistant under Huggins there from 2007-12 and was Kelce’s point of contact at the time.
“You guys treat me like family. Like I had never been treated before,” Kelce said. “I was Jason’s little brother and Cincinnati didn’t even give me this much attention.”
Jason Kelce had a hearty laugh at that statement. But Kelce was seen as a key recruit by the Mountaineers coaching staff.
“Trav, I’ll be honest man, you could hoop … you were a beast,” Calhoun said.
Kelce heavily considered the Mountaineers because of how Huggins ran his program.
“Just the camaraderie that you saw on the floor and how everybody on the bench was involved in the game,” said.
Ed Kelce, Travis’ father, made his son truly think about his decision after hearing Travis ponder taking a basketball scholarship over football.
“He looked at me and said, ‘You are a man of your word. You wanna be like these kids that commit to a university and de-commit and now the integrity of your word doesn’t mean anything?’” Kelce said.