Indiana University Athletics
Frye Finds Inspiration from Within
9/7/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 7, 2006
There are just some things that people are born to do. For Justin Frye, he was born to don an IU uniform. He was born to play football. He was born to coach football.
These are the destinies a young man faces when he walks in his father's shadow, when his father was Kevin Frye - a Hoosier, a football coach and, most importantly, a father.
Now a senior offensive lineman for the 2006 season, Justin Frye faces the biggest football season of his life. And for the first time, he faces a season without the man he idolized in every way. Kevin Frye passed away in May at the age of 48.
"That was devastating to him," offensive line coach Bobby Johnson says. "Justin had played for his dad, so football is very important to him. Usually, as a football player, you're close to your father and your coach - that was the same person for Justin. You're talking about somebody that had been to every one of his games since he was in junior high and now all of a sudden that person isn't there.
"I know that he thinks about him every day," Johnson continues, "especially on game day, but there's a certain part of him that is comforted in knowing that his dad's not suffering anymore. I know he wishes his dad were here because he's a captain and a senior and those are things he wanted his dad to see, so it's a little bittersweet for him. But I know he tries to honor his dad by his play."
The senior tackle is doing a good job with that, emerging as a captain, a true leader both on and off the field for the Hoosiers. With the Hoosiers' young offensive line, Frye has shepherded the seven true freshmen and four sophomores, taking the role of on-field coach for the Hoosiers.
"There's a player's voice and a coach's voice and the voice of the locker room," Frye says. "As a captain, my role is to be someone else that's in a player's ear when coach may not see something. My backup, Rodger [Saffold] is a freshman. If he misses a step here and Coach Johnson's busy with someone else, he can come to me. I've played enough ball and I know enough that I'll be able to tell him what Coach Johnson wants. And if I don't know, I can go to Coach Johnson and be the liaison between the players and the coaches."
For Johnson and the rest of the coaching staff, Frye's ability to lead both on and off the field is something that makes their job significantly easier.
"I couldn't even put a value on having him around," Johnson says. "With a group of guys that haven't played a whole lot of ball, having a guy like him - I can't even explain how important he is to me because of the things he is able to tell guys on and off the field. I can trust Justin to take guys in to watch video - some guys don't even know how to watch video, they just look at it, they're not quite sure what they're looking for - and he's able to tell them what they are seeing. He's too valuable to us as a program to put a value on having him."
For the son of a coach, these things are just part of the package. Sometimes it's subconscious, sometimes it's not, but when Frye speaks to his teammates on the field, it is full of knowledge and wisdom that he's accrued over his many years in the sport that he loves.
"There's phrases and there's catches that come out of my mouth," Frye says. "And not just with this staff, but my dad was a coach, and a lot of his mannerisms and things he would do, you realize, `Wow, that was Coach Frye,' or `That was Coach Johnson.' You take and grab from everywhere that worked for you and that they want to have done so if you hear them all the time you sound like them."
According to Johnson, the asset that separates Frye is his on-field experience, which spans 34 straight starts on the offensive line for the Hoosiers, not to mention his many years on the gridiron before coming to Bloomington. Frye was a three-time all-conference, all-county and all-state selection while in high school.
"He's just a very experienced player," Johnson says. "With the things he's been through over 30-some-odd starts he has seen so many things that you can't teach other guys. He has a wealth of knowledge that he shares with a guy like Charlie Emerson and can tell them, `Hey, if you get this look, this is what to expect.' His knowledge from on-field battles is invaluable."
In his streak of 34 games in a row in the starting lineup, Frye has had his fair share of bumps and bruises - you can't go through a Big Ten football season on the offensive line without a few injuries - but the senior has fought through them and used the resources that IU football offers to stay on the field.
"You have to take advantage of everything that is offered," Frye says. "[Head football athletic trainer] Dean [Kleinschmidt] and [assistant football athletic trainer] Brian [Lund] and the rest of the training staff do an awesome job. They're there whenever you need them, we can call them whenever we want, treatment is there all day, every day. Both on the field and off the field you have to play fast. You're prone to getting hurt if you're taking a play off or you're slowing down before the whistle, so you have to play fast all the time."
That's not to say that the training staff performs miracles on the players - according to Frye, it's rare to feel completely healthy during the football season.
"You have good days," he says. "You don't play football and not get dings and bruises and things like that. Days after games are always the worst, and until you play that full game, hitting every play and everything's live, it's a different adjustment. You can wake up some days and think, `wow, my neck hurts, my arm hurts,' but you just have to keep going."
Now in his fourth year of starting, Frye knows that this season's Hoosiers have a tremendous amount of talent and potential. But he also knows that with all that talent and the excitement of year two of the Terry Hoeppner Era comes the pressure to do something Indiana has not done since 1993 - earn a bowl bid. But according to the offensive lineman, the pressure is just as much from within as it is from external forces.
"It would be a disappointment [not making a bowl]," Frye says. "Failure's a strong word, but in a sense, personally it is. You play college football to go to bowl games, and to go here five years if I don't accomplish that then I didn't get everything out of playing college football that I wanted. With this team and the talent we have, the chemistry we have and the enthusiasm, we need to go bowling."
Being a part of the team that makes that step is something that Frye craves. He is well aware of the glory days of Indiana football (Kevin was a member of the 1979 team that defeated No. 9 BYU to win the Holiday Bowl) and knows that the 2006 squad has a chance to help IU football become a winning football program once again.
"From the inside out and the bottom up, you need a strong foundation," Frye says. "Unluckily for me, this is my last year, but the more and more that this senior class works harder, we're setting up that foundation for future players to come in. If the freshmen that are here now can learn something from us and see how hard we worked, then that's going to be normal to them and it's going to become the culture of the team. I'd love to be here and play football for the rest of my life, but that's not going to happen. As long as the seniors keep showing the younger guys what Indiana football is, that's going to benefit everybody, now and in the future."
But just because this will be Frye's last year in a Hoosier uniform doesn't mean that it's his last chance to be a part of an IU bowl team. The sport communication major has aspirations to follow in the footsteps of his idol and patrol the sidelines - possibly for the Hoosiers.
"Before it's all said and done, there will be a Justin Frye Coach's Show," the Elwood, Ind., native says. "Football is all I've ever known. When I was a kid I was the coach's son that was out there tackling the tackling dummies in practice. Coming to college, I've gotten an itch for the X's and O's of it as well as the love of the game. There's no doubt in my mind that someday I'm going to be a head college football coach."
In his coach's eyes, that's certainly a possibility.
"He notices things that are outside of the box," Johnson says. "Often times, linemen get caught up in their small world, but Justin can see coverages. He'll get in his tackle stance and recognize a coverage and realize that it's a precursor to a certain type of blitz. He just understands the whole game of football, and that's what would make him a good coach."
For Justin Frye, football is his life, his destiny. And his role model in both a personal sense and a football sense is one that he is honored to shadow.
"He always said that he taught me everything I know but not everything he knew," Frye says. "That was a joke between us, but at the same time I tried to take everything from him that I could. The way that he coached and his mannerisms carry over into me now as a leader and helping my teammates."
It may not be the same without his father's physical presence - "You just can't replace the dad hugs," he says - but for the coach's son, his father is always there in some way. And for the Indiana football program, that's something that shows its value through the mind, body and soul of No. 60.
"Physically he's not here, but spiritually, emotionally, he's always in the back of my mind. And I can hear him saying, `You made a wrong step here,' or `you missed something here,' and he would say things after the games that I'm still getting through him now even though that he's not here."
