RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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EAST LANSING – Trent Fraley remembered a warm morning one summer in Minnesota, when he was in fifth or sixth grade. He and his brothers wanted to go enjoy their break from school.
First things first, however. His father, Hank , made sure they got in a workout.
“He’s like, all right, let’s go down to this grass field we have,” Trent said. “And I’m out there doing four-cone drills – springing, shuffle, backpedal, all of that.”
It might not have made sense at the time. But the older the new center for Michigan State football gets, the more he reaps the benefits from those sessions. Hank, an 11-year NFL vet who's now the Detroit Lions ’ offensive line coach, was already sculpting – and sharpening – his sons’ work ethic.
“I think I realize now why,” the fifth-year senior, who transferred from North Dakota State this summer, said with a laugh Monday, Aug. 24. “It definitely helped me get to where I am today.”
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So far, it has taken Trent Fraley from an underrecruited high school player at Moon High School in Pennsylvania to the best center in the Football Championship Subdivision at NDSU. He won the Rimington Award as the nation’s top center last year in his second season with the Bison , then entered the portal for the second time in his college career.
Fraley now brings those skills to Pat Fitzgerald’s program as one of six captains (named Monday ) and to serve as the nerve center of an overhauled offensive line the Spartans hope will take them back to a bowl for the first time since 2021. Much the same way his father has done with the Lions since joining the organization in 2018 and rising to the leader of the Lions’ line.
Trent texted his dad Monday soon after he learned he would be one of MSU’s captains. His younger brother, Mason, also is an offensive lineman and captain, at Division II West Liberty (near Pittsburgh), after starring at Salem High in Canton.
“I think it’s one of the best honors you can ever get when playing sports, to become a team captain. Especially when it’s voted on by the team, the players,” Hank said by phone Wednesday. “It just says a lot about the respect [Trent] gained from the players. Because when you play this game, you don’t do it for that – ‘Hey, let me get the team captain.’”
Hank pointed to his son’s blue-collar roots growing up with his mom, Christy Deselle, in Pittsburgh, not far from where Hank was a star collegiate offensive lineman at Robert Morris from 1997-99, earning the retirement of his No. 71. Trent helped Moon High make a major turnaround in 2019, his sophomore season. Playing on the offensive and defensive lines he took the Tigers from 2-8 the previous season to 8-2 and to winning a share of their section title. As a senior in 2021, Trent was captain and anchor of a team undefeated until it lost at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh in the 5A championship game of the highly competitive Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.
However, high-level scholarship offers were scant for Trent, who is 6 feet 1 and weighed 280 pounds in high school (he’s up to 305 pounds now). He picked Marshall over multiple power-conference walk-on opportunities but left the West Virginia school after playing just 57 offensive snaps.
That’s how Fraley landed at FCS power North Dakota State in 2024, choosing Fargo over Western Michigan. He started all 16 games in his debut season for the Bison while helping them win a national title, then last season earned first-team FCS All-America honors along with winning the Rimington.
It didn’t take long for Fitzgerald to pounce once Fraley entered the portal in late December. As the former Northwestern coach alluded to Monday, they don’t just hand out Rimingtons like post-practice snacks.
“I think there was an automatic high level of respect from his teammates when he arrived,” Fitzgerald said of Trent. “And then the way he’s worked since Day 1 – this guy, if you guys met him face-to-face without his pads, if you look up O-lineman in the dictionary and it’s him. He’s got a big-ass neck, and he’s just a big ol’ burly offensive lineman.
“He just exudes it. His dad was obviously a great player, a great coach. It’s just in their blood and their DNA as a family. And that’s just how [Trent] rolls. There’s not a lot of nonsense with him, he’s kind of right down the middle.”
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That day in Minnesota happened while Hank an assistant OL coach with the Vikings. He landed with the Lions in 2018 and was elevated to the primary position coach in 2020. Trent spent summers with his father and stepmother and siblings at their home in Canton.
And the NFL offseason allowed them to travel together, though it was always work first. Hank recalled their hardest workout came in 100-plus degree heat during a trip to South Carolina while his oldest boys were in high school. Only afterward did they retreat to the beach.
“The work ethic came from my dad,” said Hank, who grew up in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “He was my Little League coach. And when I got to high school, if we went on a family vacation, you still worked out. You still have an obligation to your sports and the teams to stay in shape. …
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“They were all out there dying and just like, ‘What are we doing?’ It’s just, hey, you gotta get your workout in before you get to play. It’s just trying to instill in them that if it means something to you, you’re gonna do it when nobody else is looking. And I really think that’s what he has embodied. ‘I don’t need a coach to tell me to go do this; I’m gonna do it because it’s gonna make me better and our team better.’ It’s everything in life.”
Fitzgerald anointed Trent as his starting center at Big Ten media day in Chicago back in late July, even though it was clear that was going to be the case with how he play...
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