The 2015 NFL Draft's Odd Couple: Melvin Gordon and Trae Waynes

Kenosha, Wisconsin, is not a football-factory kind of town. 

The hometown of former high school teammates Melvin Gordon and Trae Waynes, Kenosha is a quiet, little waterfront town on Lake Michigan with plenty of space for growing families and nurturing the art community and academics of nearby Carthage College and University of Wisconsin-Parkside. 

The Friday night lights at Bradford High School are not nearly as bright as one might expect when one considers it produced two likely first-round picks in the same draft class. In fact, Gordon (who went on to play running back at Wisconsin) and Waynes (a cornerback from Michigan State) were the first big-time athletes churned out by that football program, and it's entirely possible they are also the last for some time. 

These are special young men: best friends, kindred spirits, brothers on and off the field. 

They are also two of the most completely opposite people one could meet. 

"The best way to describe it," says former head coach Jed Kennedy, "is if both kids walked into the room, you’d know where Melvin was about five seconds into it. Waynes would find a corner, and you might never know he was there."

Kennedy is now the head coach at Brookfield Central High School in Brookfield, Wisconsin. He still talks to his former charges often and had actually been on the phone with Gordon shortly before I spoke with him. In a football landscape where players can be so often used to further their coach's career, it is always refreshing to find a successful head coach who cares just as much about the people as he does the wins and losses. 

As different as they are, Kennedy says that Gordon and Waynes share a lot of the same traits that make them successful: notably, hard work and consistently good decision-making both on and off the field. 

"Our best players were also our hardest workers. I could count on one hand," Kennedy says, "the football or athletic activities they missed in all four years combined."

Just as Bradford High and Kenosha are not built to be football factories, these two did not dare dream that football would be their livelihood right off the bat. It took a lot of learning, a lot of coaching, plenty of that innate work ethic and a few timely growth spurts to put Gordon and Waynes on the path to success.

Gordon was the more immediate superstar thanks to a high school sophomore year that saw him grow from 5’6”, 135 pounds to 5’11”, 160 pounds.

"I was still the same player," Gordon says. "If you got it, you got it. I always had it. I just got bigger."

Gordon has a lot of that affable confidence. It's reminiscent of the Wisconsin basketball team's national championship run when players such as Frank Kaminsky and Nigel Hayes became national household names almost as much for their hilarious press conferences and antics as what they did on the court. 

What do they put in the water in Madison, Wisconsin?

"I knew I had a chance," Gordon says about that sophomore year. "[I] went and talked to scouts; they told me I was a D-III player, and I told my mom to hang the phone up. Went to Winona State camp (a D-II school near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border) and destroyed it. So, I went to the Wisconsin camp and realized I belonged."

Waynes had a little bit of a longer path before realizing his potential.

"He played outside linebacker for us his first two years," Kennedy says of Waynes. "He was always one of our best players—so danged fast. When we moved him back to the secondary, we realized what we had. He did a great job. He's not a track kid but a football kid who was really fast."

Gordon remembers much the same, both the position switches and the incredible natural athleticism: "First day I met him—and I’m not just saying that—I knew he would be special. I don't think he knew how special he could be...had to move around and find a position that fit him."

Waynes doesn't lack in confidence but also doesn't share in the same verbosity of his friend and former teammate. 

Much like Gordon's initial perception of him, Waynes saw potential greatness in Gordon right away, saying: "Aww yeah! We saw that immediately. I knew he was going to be great." 

Later, he recalled moments when Waynes used to get mad or make a mistake in practice and then turn it on, becoming a completely different player. 

For Waynes himself, though, that light didn't turn on until his sophomore season in college. Growing up in Wisconsin, he had southern roots that gave him an appreciation for LSU and family members who made sure Texas was always in the conversation. Thanks to a senior-season injury and a poor job recruiting by the Badgers, Waynes had already set his sights on Michigan State before Wisconsin really came calling. 

"No surprise," Kennedy says about Gordon going to Wisconsin. "They put the full-court press on Melvin and thought that recruiting Trae would hurt their chances with Melvin. I told them how wrong they were—these kids are best friends! By the time Wisconsin realized what they had done, Trae had a great relationship with Michigan State."

By his sophomore year of college, Waynes had started to turn his natural athleticism into more refined football skills and earned a starting position. That's when he says he started to truly believe football was a permanent fixture in his future, though he's still humble and realizes that both have a lot to learn and a lot to prove. 

This from one of the top, if not the top, cornerbacks in the 2015 draft class. 

via Gordon, used with permission

I asked both players and their former coach who would succeed if they were asked to play each other's position. Predictably, both picked themselves in that hypothetical Freaky Friday scenario. Gordon pointed out that "Trae ain't got no wiggle," while Waynes and Kennedy both pointed out that Waynes has a little more experience on that side of the ball, so he'd probably translate a little better. 

The two are natural competitors and never more so than with one another.

For years, they got to go toe-to-toe in practice situations—Bradford was big enough that they could typically specialize in their particular positions and go only one way.

"There was always competition between us," Waynes says. "We were good. Competition makes us better."

Gordon expressed remorse that they really never had a shot in college, as the teams only faced off once in their careers, and that was when neither was "the guy," as Gordon put it. Their respective special teams units met, but they never got a chance to truly go one-on-one. 

They did meet often on the virtual gridiron, though, as they kept a long-distance NCAA Football dynasty running for a few years and spent their free time on either that or Madden, trash-talking one another as ferociously as any opponent in real life. 

"We’re just real close," Gordon says. "He comes to me when things ain’t right, and I go to him for the same. It's nice we can go through this process together. We’re a lot closer than just football."

The biggest hangup in their friendship is their different communication style. Always the talker and proverbial social butterfly, Gordon calls Waynes almost every day, and Waynes usually asks him the same thing: Why are you calling when you can just text? In the same way, Gordon responds to every text from Waynes by asking why he didn't just call.

via Gordon, used with permission

They have dreamed about potentially heading to the same NFL team, but both are also possible first-round picks, so that may not happen. In fact, fittingly, Bleacher Report's Matt Miller has Gordon and Waynes ranked at Nos. 24 and 25, respectively, on his final top 400 predraft board. 

Gordon is Miller's No. 2 back, while Waynes is his No. 3 corner behind Washington's Marcus Peters and Florida State's Ronald Darby. I have Gordon in the exact same area behind Georgia running back Todd Gurley but believe Waynes is the top corner in the entire draft class. 

Either way, it looks far more likely that the two will get to remain rivals both on and off the field rather than realizing their dream of being teammates. That's fine, though, because that's how these two have always operated and they have no qualms about measuring themselves against the best, including one another. 

"I hate losing," Waynes says. "I love competing against the best. If I get beat, I get back up and get it back. I just want it...not saying other people don’t, but [an NFL career] is something I dreamed about."

For Gordon, I set up a hypothetical scenario where he takes the handoff or catches the swing pass in the flat and is left one-on-one with a cornerback who just happens to be his best friend. I think readers can guess who he thinks would win that matchup.

"I’m gonna win that matchup," Gordon says with no reservations. "I know him. I know everything he's going to do before he's even going to do it. He’s going to dive at my legs, because that's what he does, and he's gonna think I'm ready to truck him. I’m gonna hurdle over him and get my six."

Knowing how close these two and their former coach are, I asked them what their one piece of advice would be for the other as they launch their NFL careers—sort of a yearbook-inscription-type nugget that could be cherished for years to come. 

"My advice to them is: Don't forget who you are," Kennedy says. "As good of football players as they are, it's their character that makes them so damn special."

Gordon was his usual talkative self when asked the same question about Waynes. He actually seemed to take the question to heart, too, taking a few moments here and there to pause and reflect on his friend and their friendship.

"Be your own man," Gordon says about Waynes. "Things around you can get out of hand, and you can lose yourself. Just be you. Being you got you to where you are. Don’t change it up. You’re a great person. You’re a great football player, and you’re an even better person."

On one hand, those are some sweet sentiments from one athlete to another. It was hard, though, to keep from laughing as I asked Gordon if he wanted to hear Waynes' advice to him. It was too fitting—the perfect frame for the relationship these two have. It was everything they are in a nutshell. Gordon laughed, too, when I told him Waynes' advice was simply: 

"Ball out."

via Gordon, used with permission

"Yeah, that's Trae," Gordon replies. 

Two young men, complete polar opposites off the field and linked less by who they are and more by the values and commitments they share.

It shouldn't work.

In most cases, guys such as these rarely like each other or at least fail to understand one another. Yet, here they are, embarking on the greatest journeys of their lives with each other as the rock that keeps them grounded. 

If either starts to get too cocky or takes the privilege for granted, the other will be right there, gladly letting a little wind out of the other's sails and reminding him exactly where he came from. 

Michael Schottey is an award-winning NFL national lead writer for Bleacher Report and a writer for Football Insiders. Follow him on Twitter. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained by the author.