Sports
Georgia’s Nate Frazier credits mother’s sacrifice, work ethic for his drive on the field: ‘She never gave up’
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Georgia Bulldogs running back Nate Frazier couldn’t help but laugh when he reminisced about his first time getting a handoff in college last season.
The true freshman out of Compton, California, didn’t expect he would be hearing his name called against No. 14 Clemson, but nonetheless, head coach Kirby Smart wanted him on the field.
“There’s been people at the University of Georgia for three years and haven’t even touched the field yet,” he told Fox News Digital over the phone while discussing his partnership with Powerade’s “It Takes More” campaign. “So, it’s like I wasn’t really expecting myself to touch the field.
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Georgia Bulldogs running back Nate Frazier poses for the new Powerade “It Takes More” campaign ahead of the 2025 college football season. (Powerade)
“My heart was beating out of my chest and I couldn’t even feel my body. I was so nervous.”
Frazier said that first handoff led to him tripping “because I couldn’t feel my feet.” But Frazier knew he had to face all the noise, expectation and nerves that come with playing SEC football.
Why? His mother wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Frazier described his mother, Yomeisha Moore, as his “biggest hero.”
She raised him as a single mother through the first years of his life, depending on her own mother and sisters to help raise her only son. And her son never forgets what she’s done to help him reach this point to now – being atop the Bulldogs’ depth chart at running back entering the 2025 season.
“Her determination and work ethic made me feel like I had no choice – I can’t give up,” Frazier explained when asked about his mother’s influence. “No matter what comes my way, there’s no backing out because I literally watched her do it. No matter what came her way, she never backed out. She never quit, she never gave up. She always found her way out.
“My mother never, ever in her life told me, ‘Son, I can’t do this.’ My mother has always made a way for me no matter what it was. No matter if you had a meteor coming down from the sky, my mom would be able to work it out and be able to protect me.”
That drive from Moore stuck with Frazier, who picked himself up after that first carry against Clemson and rushed for 83 yards with a touchdown on 11 carries in the 34-3 blowout to open the 2024 season.
Frazier went on to rush for 671 yards on 133 attempts with eight rushing touchdowns in his debut season for the Bulldogs, cementing himself as a piece for the future on Smart’s squad.
Nate Frazier #3 of the Georgia Bulldogs celebrates after scoring a touchdown during a game between the University of Tennessee and University of Georgia at Sanford Stadium on Nov. 16, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. (Perry McIntyre/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
The stakes are higher for Frazier this year, even if he isn’t eligible to enter the NFL Draft just yet. That will have to wait for next year, but he’s not even thinking about his own future. His team-focused, saying that he just wants to do what’s best for the Bulldogs in 2025 to hopefully make it further than just winning the SEC Championship like they did last season.
But Frazier plays for much more than just the Bulldogs and their faithful fans in Athens every week. Over 2,000 miles away, his mother is watching in suspense, hoping her son continues to never give up despite the situation. And so are young ones wanting to be Frazier some day.
“I play for all the kids back home no matter where they’re at,” Frazier began when asked who he plays for each game day. “Not even my hometown, but for kids that don’t believe they can do it and just think it’s impossible and unheard of. I play for all the kids that grew up in the type of situations I grew up in, where majority of the stuff is the street life and stuff like that. I play for all the kids that need to know that there is other options. This option that you choose, the athlete way, whether it’s playing football, running track or whatever you’re doing, it can work.
“I play for my family. Every time there’s hard times or hard points [of the season], I just think about my family and all the struggles we went through and stuff like that. They never gave up on me and were always in my corner, always in my circle. They were positive to me no matter what it was.”
Frazier and the Bulldogs begin their 2025 football journey on Saturday, where they will host Marshall at Sanford Stadium.
Georgia Bulldogs running back Nate Frazier (3) celebrates after a victory over the Tennessee Volunteers at Sanford Stadium on Nov. 16, 2024. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)
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FRAZIER KNOWS IT TAKES MORE
Frazier’s emergence as a key cog for the Bulldogs’ football program means opening up new NIL opportunities, which came as Powerade refreshed the “It Takes More” campaign, which enters its third straight year ahead of the college football season.
“I never really thought I’d be able to have opportunities like this to be able to be in this position,” he told FOX Business. “Powerade is a drink that’s used by athletes around the world, not even the country. To be able to be in this position is amazing, and it doesn’t feel real. I’m just really blessed to be able to work with Powerade.”
As a true freshman last season playing in the SEC, the hardest conference in college football, Frazier truly understood the meaning of “It Takes More.”
“It takes extra hours of film. It takes extra hours being with your coach. It takes extra hours of field work. It takes more studying of the playbook. It takes more studying of the team you’re going to play against. …All the things you think you need to work on, dive more into it,” he said.
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In the latest gambling scandal to rock sports, a federal indictment accuses bettors and athletes of “point-shaving” in NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games.
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NCAA president responds to integrity concerns after alleged point-shaving scheme leads to dozens of arrests
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The NCAA said that protecting the “integrity” of its athletics is “of the utmost importance” for the organization after at least 26 people were charged Thursday in connection with fixed college basketball games, and urged states to “ban risky bets.”
Prosecutors said the alleged participants bribed Chinese Basketball Association players in 2022 “to underperform and help ensure their team failed to cover the spread in certain games and then, through various sports books, arranged for large wagers to be placed on those games against that team.”
The following year, the participants allegedly expanded their scheme to the NCAA, recruiting players and paying bribes between $10,000 and $30,000 per game.
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NCAA President Charlie Baker and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell announce a gambling prevention program aimed at kids during a press conference at TD Garden. The program includes a school curriculum on the risks of gambling that will be rolled out to schools statewide, as well as new money towards research to understand the scope of the problem. (Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
According to the indictment, more than 39 players on 17 different teams attempted to fix more than 29 NCAA Division I men’s basketball games, including conference tournament contests. The organizers of the alleged scheme placed wagers totaling millions of dollars.
“Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA. We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a statement.
Baker said the indictments were “not entirely new information to the NCAA,” as it had conducted “integrity investigations into approximately 40 student-athletes from 20 schools over the past year.”
The NCAA logo on entrance sign outside of the NCAA Headquarters on Feb. 28, 2023 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
The NCAA added that 11 athletes from seven schools were “recently found to have bet on their own performances, shared information with known bettors, and/or engaged in game manipulation to collect on bets they — or others — placed” and have since been permanently banned.
“Additionally, 13 student-athletes from eight schools (including some of those identified above) were found to have failed to cooperate in the sports betting integrity investigation by providing false or misleading information, failing to provide relevant documentation and/or refusing to be interviewed by the enforcement staff. None of them are competing today,” Baker added.
Baker also called on states to crack down on “threats to integrity,” specifically prop bets, “to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors. We also will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement. We urge all student-athletes to make well-informed choices to avoid jeopardizing the game and their eligibility.”
The chargers on Thursday included bribery in sporting contests, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud.
“[Defendants] aided and abetted the carrying into effect, the attempt to carry into effect, and the conspiracy to carry into effect, a scheme in commerce to influence by bribery sporting contests, that is, Chinese Basketball Association (“CBA”) men’s basketball games and National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) men’s basketball games, with the defendants engaging in different aspects of this scheme, with knowledge that the purpose of this scheme was to influence in some way those contests by bribery,” the indictment said.
General view of the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship game between the University of Kentucky Wildcats and the University of Florida Gators at the Georgia Dome on March 14, 2004, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
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The announcement follows the federal government’s crackdown on illicit sports gambling and point-shaving schemes that involved the NBA in October.
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Twenty men have been charged in a point-shaving scheme involving more than 39 college basketball players on more than 17 NCAA Division I teams, leading to more than 29 games being fixed, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Fifteen of the defendants played college basketball during the 2023-24 and/or 2024-25 seasons, according to the indictment. Some have played this season. Two of the players named in the indictment, Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavian Short, were sanctioned in November by the NCAA for fixing New Orleans games.
At least two of the defendants, Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, were also charged in a federal indictment in the Eastern District of New York centered on gambling schemes in the NBA.
Former NBA player Antonio Blakeney was named but not charged in the indictment. The indictment describes Blakeney as being “charged elsewhere.”
The scheme, according to the indictment, began around September 2022 and initially was focused on fixing games in the Chinese Basketball Association. The group later targeted college basketball games, offering bribes to college players ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 to compromise games for betting purposes, according to the indictment.
“In placing these wagers on games they had fixed, the defendants defrauded sportsbooks, as well as individual sports bettors, who were all unaware that the defendants had corruptly manipulated the outcome of these games that should have been decided fairly, based on genuine competition and the best efforts of the players,” the indictment said.
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Bettors and players fixed dozens of NCAA basketball games, prosecutors say
NCAA president responds to integrity concerns after alleged point-shaving scheme leads to dozens of arrests
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