Welcome Elliott Ivory, a Coach for what I think is the PREMIER 7V7 ORGANIZATION IN THE MIDWEST… BOOM. We talk about the founding philosophy for MIDWEST BOOM, how Coach Elliott is recruiting players, and how he's helping players get recruited. We discuss his recent venture with the LINEMEN ATHLETES.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER https://www.upongame.network/
Welcome to Taylor Scouting a new podcast presented by UP ON GAME PRESENTS. Coach Randy Taylor will give you the best analysis from his 40 years plus in the football scouting world each week. His insight not only helps the players on the field but will also provide parents with the education they need for their children to succeed.
Follow/Rate/Review Up On Game Presents on the iHeartRadio App, or wherever you get your podcasts!
WATCH FULL EPISODES ON THE UP ON GAME NETWORK YOUTUBE CHANNEL SEARCH "UP ON GAME NETWORK"
============ SOCIAL MEDIA ============
►Twitter: / rtaylorfbscout
► Twitter: / upongamenetwork
► Instagram: / upongamenetwork
Welcome to Up on Kaine Presents Taylor Scouting coach Randy Taylor's bringing his forty plus years of knowledge to you. This is Taylor Scouting and now here's coach Randy Taylor.
Hey, folks, welcome back to LaVar Arrington's Up on Game Networks Taylor Scouting podcast, where we talk football at every level with an emphasis on recruiting and scouting. Today, we're going to talk about a big time seven v seven organization in the Chicago area and one of its top coaches. Welcome Elliott Ivory, a coach for what I think is the premiere seven v seven organization in the Midwest Boom Football. How you doing, brother.
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
And I would have to say maybe my opinion is by I agree with you. We are the premiere seventy seven organization in the country.
I won't tell the James brothers that. Hey, hey, so let me talk about you Elliott boys.
Those boys, they brothers.
I love fig and yeah they're my guys. I recruited him on high school back in the day. So Elliott is the director of media and the fifteen you defensive coordinator played football at Western Illinois University, current owner and talent scout at Game Time Pros. He's working with top high school, college, and pro athletes in the country. He's producer of the Boom Highlight mixtapes, which has drawn over two million total views. Something I longed for and has led the Booms ten U to fifteen U teams to seven national championships. That's not a bad little doesn't, my brother? You want to add anything to that?
The best looking, drippiest coach in the country. Those only two things that was missing. They should have been at the top of LASI. Should have been probably the drippiest coach in the nation and then the best looking coach. I don't know how those got left out me. I didn't write my bio.
Yeah, they weren't in your bio on the Boom football sheet. So you got to make sure that gets fixed. Brother. All right, So let me ask you how long has Boom been in existence?
This is season twelve, so a little bit over twelve, thirteen years. Thirteen years now we've been so it started with some backyard football going on. You know, my partner and my brother Jr. Nicholas, he has his training facility, Acceleration out in Aperville and me doing game time pros. We used to cross market a lot, so I used to bring a lot of my clients to them and they would send clients to me to get highlight videos done. But amongst the athletes working out in US across marketing, every once in a while we'll play a little blackyard football seven on seven outside their facility. And once we started doing that, I actually had an idea. I'm like, let's play in the Flag League one season and we played flag and I was traveling a lot doing a lot of AAU basketball circuit. I was on the UIBL circuit with Mean Streets, so I was like, this would be phenomenal for football. And I had the idea, and I went to JR. And I brought Ty Streets in initially, and I was like, hey, the two of you guys both played in the league. Ty Streets is now on as probably the best athlete in Illinois of all time. You know, you played at Michigan with Tom Brady and won national championships and.
He's a very decorated basketball coach as well. And JR.
Nicholas who played in the league and Western Illinois. He was football guy, so there was also our connection having the both being leather necks.
Even though I was a walk on and.
He was a three time All American, we still had a relationship in the bond and I was like, youtuboe, guys, and I'll do the videos. And I was like, when we lose a draw, our team is going to look incredible because I'm doing the video. And that's how it started. And it blew up beyond our imagination.
Since and you're still doing videos.
Yeah, so I still so. Back then, I used to do videos for everyone. So I used to do highlight videos for any college athlete, basically putting it together as their video resume. I started that company back in two thousand and six. And then once we started and the way Booms started blowing up, I started just doing videos for Boom because I had the creative advantage to edit and put out the content that I wanted to put out.
And that's why in.
The earlier day, our videos went a little viral because of my little savage, creative, creative style that I want to put out there. That the super raw in your faith competitive edge to our videos.
That's what seven and seven Ball and now Linemen Linement camps are about. Is that in your face, compete, have fun, screaming, jumping up and down, you know, enthusiasm, passion. I mean, that's that's what that is all about. And I think why the kids love it so much.
Absolutely, and.
Is an outlet right right, So and tackle football doing the fall season, you're not allowed to celebrate and to express yourself the way you are in seven oh seven. And that's in a lot of people and a lot of I mean you used to see it in the NFL, and that even in the NFL you get flagged or penalized for a sess of celebrations.
So seven o seven right now, until people.
They come in and they start putting all these rules behind it, it's the wild, wild West. So people are able to celebrate and have a little fun. And that's a part of the game that we appreciate the most.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. Hey, is there like a charter or a founding philosophy for Midwest Boom?
Nothing is given?
Everything is earned, right So when we yeah, when we first started, we had maybe forty kids at our are out. The first team we went to Nationals, we had four or five kids starting on our defense that didn't even start for their high school teams, and we managed to place within the top ten or fifteen I think that year, and we really understood that nobody's going to give us anything. We have to go out and work for it and earn everything on our own. So every national championship, every win was earned nothing. It was never given, especially with us being from Chicago, because I recall when we first started the first few years, everybody would say, Hey, I didn't even know Chicago had this much talent or football players. That's a basketball city in Illinois, a basketball state. And we still get that now, whether it's referees or tournament directors. At tournaments, they see our teams and they're like, oh man, you got are loaded top to bottom. Where is all this football coming from in Illinois? So we never been really respected as a football state that produces football, really good football players.
But we wanted to show the nation differently, and we have been.
How many teams do you have?
Now?
Oh man? God?
So we travel to per age group two ten U to twelve U to fourteen U, two fifteen you and last year we had four eighteen U teams that travel. But we also run a regional program, So everybody that doesn't make a travel team, they get to stay and play local and get coached by the same coaches as the kids.
That are traveling nationally.
So it's almost like a feeder program because the tryouts are very intense and they're short, and some kids don't show up at tryouts, but through our regional organization, we're able to see their talent and then eventually bumped them up.
Just a guess, maybe how many players do you have in the organization at one time? All levels?
All levels? Yeah, probably close to I want to say four hundred.
Does that include linement?
Uh yeah, well, let's sen five hundred give or take between national and and and regional. And that's Illinois, not even thinking about our Saint Louis division, gotcha.
Yeah, you guys are are kind of spreading out all over and are are almost not international yet. But soon.
Right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah soon.
Yeah, that's the that's not the plan, but I believe we it could be, It could happen.
Anything that is possible.
Absolutely, I think I think that's right behind you is like Mexico. I think so that you're you're covering it all. Hey, as far as I'm concerned. You guys are in the recruiting business. You know, there's one side of your recruiting players for your teams, and then on the other side, you're helping your players get recruited. Do you how much is that a part of your process and.
Effort. Well, it's a huge part. Actually. That was one of our selling points with me having gain time.
Pros starting a company get game time Pros, because that's what I did person I help high school athletes get into college.
And then with Jr. And his experience and his facility acceleration having athletes come through.
We want to prepare kids to become the best version of themselves and within our organization one and I have emails from years ago on some of the athletes who are professionals of Division one players and me just in their name out in their video out from seven oh seven tournaments to coaches and to rivals and twenty four to seven and to all the reporters saying, hey.
This guy is next. You need to look at him.
And it's funny because I look at those emails and you got responses here and there from people. But now when we speak to somebody O, we reach out to college and say, hey, you need to offer this kid, he's next. Our credibility is way higher now than it was eleven twelve years ago.
That helps you on the front end too. I would think of recruiting young kids. How start? How young do you start looking at these kids to get on your youth teams?
In you so to you so third and fourth graders, And it's a process and we take it very seriously. Myself, Michael Bert coach Bert. They call them birst Singer. We go to games Friday Saturday Sunday every week Friday, Saturday Sunday. We're a youth games. We're at high school games. We go to college games. I go to a couple of NFL games to see our guys.
And we.
Look at our organization more as like a fraternity for Illinois football players, and we stay connected with everybody.
So we go out and support, We go out and recruit.
And we grow out and try to find anybody who can help us continue the level of dominance that we've been playing at.
How many coaches do you have in the organization?
Two perteen, Well, not really two perteam, because some of us coach multiple teams, like myself and Bert but I want to say a total of fourteen coaches for coaches, dedicated coaches.
And they're they're all kind of football junkies, former coaches, all kinds of different guys that that are big in their communities. Is that is that how your guys are?
Yep, everybody comes with different backgrounds.
So the funny part about that is because when I when we first started it, I really felt like everybody needed to be on the board with the same mentality and personality that me and JR.
Had And I was wrong. I was extremely wrong.
That's why in corporate America, diversity and inclusion is so important. In the companies that actually are more diverse end up having more success because you get to get opinions and learn from different backgrounds and different people with different perspectives.
So our coaching staff is like that. It's like that.
It is very diverse with people who played Division three, people who maybe played TWEK football and always wanted to play but were never good enough, but just loved the game and passionate about the game. You have people who were professional athletes like JR. You have somebody like myself. In college, I was a journeyman, so I played at junior college, I played Division three. I played at Western, I got kicked out of Western and went to a Division two school and played Division two. So everybody has different experiences, which is beneficial for the kids. So they don't get more, they get more than one coaching style. They get to experience a wide array of different coaching styles, which is great for our organization overall.
Hey, are there are there off field teaching and philosophy efforts made by your organization? How does that work?
Yes? There is?
Actually on the EIGHTEENU level, coach Sam Sam has been with us since maybe year season three, and he's uh, actually he's uh, what do you call it on the school level, not a principal, but the guy that's ahead of a district, Like he runs like.
A district super or something like that.
Yeah, like a superintendent. Yeah, that's exactly right.
So Sam Delu, who's and he played Division III and at his school, I think he like broke records for receptions. But he does character training every before every practice, and he has a subject every week that he focuses on and he brings the kids together. And I also do character development just a little differently than he does. I'm more so of the coach that's gonna not accept anything but your best.
So a lot of the kids end up.
Disliking me until they get into college or they become a grown man and they're like, oh, I see why you went so hard and you pushed me so hard because you wanted me to be the best version of myself. Or I told you I wanted to go to Alabama and you was like, Nick, Saban is not going to accept anybody who's bringing the effort and.
Energy that you're bringing it to practice today.
So it's a lot of different character development within our organization, and I think that's one of the reasons why we have so much success.
These kids will learn, like I learned back in the day, that when a coach stops yelling at you, that's when he doesn't care anymore.
Oh absolutely, And those are things that we are able to the stories we able to share firsthand.
I was one of those players.
I experienced things like that, and I realized as a coach a lot of Look, when you start coaching kids, it gives you a lot of time to reflect on yourself as an athlete and the things that you went through and whatever your journey was and you try to make sure that hey, I want to make I want to prepare kids not to experience what I experienced. I want to prepare kids to be ready to go, culturable, willing to have perseverance and endure the hard times.
And I tell, we tell, we all tell every last one of these kids.
It's one thing to say, Hey, I'm about to go to college and I want to play right away. And then you tell them like, hey, college is totally different than what high school was, and prepare to be shocked and culture shocked and experience.
Some rough and some tough days.
And when when the alumna started coming back, and when some of the kids that you wouldn't think because they're professional athletes now that you wouldn't think had bad days. Everyone has bad days. It's a part of the process. But now with our with our with our organization, in our community, we try to make sure that he.
Has some one to talk to.
Give me some names of the kids that have come through your your organization, that are are out there that you're proud of. I know you're proud of all of them, but I guess the bigger name players have come through.
The bigger name player, So the Fir's name that everyone throws out and that we still throw out because this this athlete has played with us with Ceedee Lamb and he only played one tournament with.
Us, but he's a high profile kid.
I actually did his senior year highlight video U and when I the first time I saw him play, I said, hey, that's.
Randy Moss or he reminded me of Randy.
Moss how electric he was, and I was wondering he didn't get invited to any All American game.
He was only a three star athlete.
But he's a big name of course right now, a kid that started with us in six or seventh grade and somehow we went in and found this kid in the slums of the Grange.
His name is JJ McCarthy.
I don't know if you heard of the kid, but he was there in their earlier years when my coaching style was so raw and in your faith, it was before I learned to dial it back that me, him and his dad would forever have a bond because they were there when we were fighting to become who we were today, and it was a part of that process. Then it's tons of it's tons of kids. I mean, Greg knew something. He got drafted first round, which was crazy to me because I remember when he first started playing for US. His mom said, hey, I know you got grabbed on defense, but I don't know if you knew this. My baby is a dog with the ball in his hand. And I'm like, oh really, And she sent me his video. She's yeah, he played running back and he's like that and he's incredible. And I said listen, and this is he was in eighth grade. I said, listen, Crystal, you can take this for what you want. I said, I was a walk on at West End. I played dB. I know a little bit about the game, but I said, if your son plays defense, he's just going to play on Sunday. Fast forward five six years later, he's drafted first round, playing on playing defense on Sundays. Cam Mitchell is on his team. Another kid, I mean, Julian Love.
Man.
It's so many athletes that I can say that Mark Gronowski that now is playing at South Dakota State that's dominating. I think he's going for his third or fourth national championship. It's so many kids that came that that half came out of our organization that are now shining on a on a collegiate level or a professional level.
Uh, it's kind of mind blowing.
But we try to stay in touch with all of them and and and keep tabs on all of them.
But I would say JJ McCarthy right now, he's the hot in the in the in.
The biggest name. But Tyler Morris is on this team who also played for US. I mean, you can keep going, Caleb Brown's I mean it's a long We got some we got somes, we got some kids coming through.
I know you do. How do how do you handle the parents? I mean that's got to be uh uh. Some parents just let you go. Others are are heavily involved, just like a college staff and a high school staff. You gotta deal with the parents. How do you guys handle that? What are their boundaries?
Yeah, most definitely their boundaries. But the thing is we also are willing. We understand that Boom is only a very small part of the village, and without the parents trusting us and allowing their kids to come out and compete with our organization, we wouldn't have the success without them.
So the parents are basically fostered in as a family.
Like I said, the bonded I have with Jim McCarthy like JJ's dad, like, we still text each other all the time, and every other kid's success is basically we all share that success because we got there.
As a family.
And we try to have open communication as much as possible with the parents, but we try to tell them, hey, this is an opportunity seeing that we are a very competitive club organization. It's the opportunity for your son to become a young man and learn how to handle things.
On his own.
So if he had issues with the coach and he's concerned about playing time or which team is he on, or what happened last game, he needs to go to that coach directly, because that's what's going to happen in college when you get When you're in college, mom and dad is not around, and if you're not playing and it's fifteen.
Our duds in the room, who do you talk to? You talk to your position coach?
Hey, coach, Hey, I want to know what can I do to get on the field or what's going on right now. So we we bring our parents and everybody's involved that we have conversations, and of course, every once in a while we have some parents that expectations for their kids may.
Be different than.
What we see and what they want, and it may be disagreements, but nine times out of ten we try to avoid that by having good, open conversations with him.
That's great.
I know the NCAA rules have changed recently in a lot of different areas. Are college coaches able to contact you guys.
Directly they JR time or.
I proactively, Like with the relationships that we have, we got we got kids now like Drake Brown and Bobby McMillan, junior that started with us our first year that played and then went on play D one. Dre Brown played at Illinois, Bobby McMillan played at Iowa State.
They they're college coaches.
So it's just like, hey, take a look a look at New Mexico State, and I think Dre is either Illinois.
Yeah, I think he's still at Illinois. Houston played for US.
He's an Illinois UH director of on the recruiting staff. So we just reach out to those guys directly now say hey, take a look at this kid. He might be a fifth for you guys or somebody you guys shall offer. But JR. And myself and some of the other coaches like Jr's brother Mike Nicholas.
We all to our.
Relationship the coaches we have relationships with and say hey, this is a kid you might need to consider or be interested in.
Yeah, that's great. So here's the session where the section we're in now is what I call the open gym. This is where you coach can talk about whatever you want, promote, whatever you're doing, anything that you want to talk about. This is your your time in the open gym.
And I thought about this when you when you prepped me earlier on a call. And what I want to discuss doing the open gym is, first, I want to just show the gratitude and the thanks.
To all the parents and.
The player that helped us become the brand that we are today and the coaches.
So it's been twelve seasons.
It took a lot for us to become who we are and basically a well known name in football across the country. And like you mentioned, you mentioned the James brothers like for us.
To even.
Produce a team and a brand that make them want to fly from California to Chicago to say, hey, I want to play this team because these guys look really good and for us to develop a relationship through that. Like now we go to an All American game to see our kids and we're down there and we just able to go out and socialize and hang out and swap stories.
But I want to say thank you to all the kids and the parents and.
Everybody who's ever been a part of Boom Nation and the kids that we're now looking at and recruiting, and it's thinking about playing for a different thing. I don't think you ever have an experience like playing for the most dominant club organization in high school sports, high school and youth sports. I'm pretty sure in some years from now it'll be either it's being thirty for thirty or again this book of world records for how many national championships we got.
But it's not about the wins. It's about the kids and.
The character and what we're doing for the kids and the character that they're developing throughout our organization. Because our mentality in our mindset is total domination, and it's not about total domination in football, it's about total domination in life. So I want you to see and dominate in corporate America or starting your own non for profit to business or whatever you're doing, whatever your endeavors are, I want you to We want you to be great, and we want you to do things.
The right way by earning them and not trying to uh duck the work. A lot of kids today duck the work, Randy, I don't know. I don't understand why they want to. They want it easy. Years in the game.
You forty years of the game, so you understand more than anybody else.
But a lot of kids want.
To duck the work and they and they don't. They don't like the challenge. When we was the only thing in Chicago and Illinois, uh, they had to come and try out if they wanted to get better off season. Now it's other options. And I'm telling the kids, hey, I know this, other options, but are you going there? Because you'd be comfortable there and you're scared to be uncomfortable because on the other side of being uncomfortable, that's where greatness lies.
That's how you become. JJ McCarthy j J.
JJ didn't come in seventh grade and he was just the man like and he just wilders for sixty seventh grade. He actually like worked up through our regional program. He played regional and we used to call it in house.
Back then. He played regional and then he was killing it so much that the coach that coached him said, hey, you might want to consider taking him to a national tournament. So I reached out to JJ, said, hey, man, the coach that you've been killing it, and his.
Dad was like really, And we brought him up and you know what, they flew down to Atlanta and JJ came off the bench behind two other quarterbacks.
We didn't start him.
Still, he had to earn it, and him and his dad appreciate that. I'm telling other athletes, hey, if you come, don't be afraid of competition, don't be afraid to feel uncomfortable, don't be afraid of the work, because on the other side of that, who knows who you can become.
You know that those are I love it. You knocked it out of the park, coach, and I just want to thank you for joining us and wish you luck Elliott Ivory and football, So thanks for being with us today. Hey guys, remember to catch Taylor Scouting on Fridays at nine am Pacific time on YouTube The up on Game Network. Up on Game presents Taylor Scouting podcast and on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. Rate and review our podcasts, and follow us on all social platforms by searching the up on Game Network and follow me on x at Our, Taylor, FB, Scout. Appreciate you all, Thanks coach, and we'll see you next week.