The epiphany didn’t come easily for Leslie Frazier.
The timing wasn’t right. He was going to get his knee back to 100 percent and show the doubters he could still play the game he loved.
How could they think any differently?
From standout at Lee High School in Columbus to All-America defensive back at Alcorn State to starting cornerback with the NFL’s Chicago Bears, Frazier had shown he could negotiate every hurdle to be the best. This time was no different. He was going to show everyone who doubted him he could get back to doing what he did for a living: Play football.
So why did this man, Dr. Ken Meyer, an individual he didn’t know, believe it was OK to send him a letter asking if he was interested in being the head coach of Trinity College’s first football team?
Talk about presumptuous. Didn’t Meyer know he was a football player not a football coach?
There would be other NFL teams that would interested, right? Yes, Frazier told himself, so he crumpled the letter and threw it away and didn’t give it another thought.
Twenty four years later, Frazier can look back and smile. He can thank his wife for encouraging him — like only a wife can do — to consider all of his options, including the most unlikely of all: Coaching.
On Tuesday, the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings capped Frazier’s journey from Columbus to the pros when they named him the team’s eighth head coach. Frazier served as interim head coach after the firing of head coach Brad Childress, and guided the Vikings to a 3-3 record to end the 2010 season.
Frazier, who the Vikings hired as defensive coordinator in 2007 and a year later named assistant head coach, never imagined the career path he initially dismissed as a possibility would come to be such a perfect fit.
“I have thought about it for a long, long time and a lot of years that that decision (to interview for the job at Trinity) is maybe the best decision I made in my life other than marrying my wife and other things I have done,” Frazier said. “That decision changed the trajectory in my life. I am not sure what direction I would have gone if I had not listened to Dr. Meyer. Taking that job had a major effect on my career.”
A man with a dream
Ken Meyer didn’t know Leslie Frazier. He did, though, have a dream that his small evangelical Christian school (less than 4,000 students) in suburban Chicago would start a football program.
His goal was to find a man with the values to suit Trinity College’s mission. He only knew of Frazier through a mutual friend on the school’s Board of Regents, so he sent Frazier a letter asking if he would be interested in visiting the school to discuss a job opportunity as the school’s first football coach.
Meyer found out after the fact from Frazier’s wife, Gale, that Leslie threw the letter out.
Meyer wasn’t going to let someone recommended by then-Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka and Bears linebacker Mike Singletary get away. He also wasn’t convinced Frazier was sold on the idea of going into the insurance business as his new career.
Months passed after Frazier rejected Meyer’s initial offer until he finally decided in November it wouldn’t hurt to listen to his wife and check the school out. After all, he thought, he planned to recommend a friend, former Chicago Bears teammate Brian Cabral, who was working as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Purdue, for the job, so it would be worth the trip.
It wasn’t until December that Frazier said he was ready to make the trip when he received a phone call from the NFL’s Seattle franchise. The Seahawks wanted to see if Frazier was still interested and capable of playing in the league. In January, he passed the medical portion of the Seahawks’ tests and was asked to return to participate in a second phase, which included running 40-yard dashes and other endurance and conditioning drills.
But Frazier had an epiphany on the plane ride home.
“I thought even if I play again how much long could I play?” Frazier said. “I knew I was not 100 percent running to play corner in the NFL, so if my career had to end why did it have to end in a unique situation? The Trinity situation was unique in that I was asked to be a 29-year-old head coach at a liberal arts college a few miles from where my home was at the time. It seemed like something unique that a year later might not be there. On the flight back I really felt like God was calling me to do it. When I landed, I called my agent and told him I was not going back to Seattle and that I think I was going to take this job at a small liberal arts college. He thought I was going crazy. My wife was good with it and I called the president and said, ‘Let’s set up a meeting.’ ”
The script might not have gone like Meyer planned, but he had faith Frazier would follow his heart and see the chance was tailor made for him.
“I felt Leslie would be an exceptional recruiter,” said Meyer, who retired as school president in 1995 at what is known now as Trinity International University, and served as the school’s chancellor until 2008. “After I talked to him that initial time I knew it would turn out to be true.”
Meyer said he wouldn’t have considered hiring Frazier if he didn’t know faith was an integral ingredient in his life. He had no problem giving Frazier anything he needed and complete control to build a program. Frazier rewarded his faith by building a NAIA program that won two conference titles in nine seasons.
And it happened at a school whose president hoped Frazier’s ability to lead a football program would help it narrow its female-to-male ratio, which had been 60:40, to 50:50.
“It was such a good match for Trinity and me, and I think Les feels the same way,” Meyer said. “It got him his start in his coaching career. I never had a day I was ashamed I brought him in.”
The coach who would have been
Brian Cabral didn’t have a career-ending injury force him into a decision.
After his NFL career ended, Cabral naturally gravitated into the coaching world, where he still works as the run game coordinator and linebackers coach at the University of Colorado.
But Cabral knows Frazier didn’t find his next calling easily. In fact, he said Frazier had such a difficult time moving on from the NFL because his career ended so abruptly on the field in Super Bowl XX. Looking back, Cabral sensed Frazier still wanted to be a part of football but he didn’t know how to combine the two.
Cabral hasn’t coached with Frazier, but he knows his good friend is a “technician” who understands the game. More importantly, he knows Frazier’s authenticity has been a key to his success as a coach.
“He is very transparent to a degree with his players, and I think people respect that and respond to that,” said Cabral, who recalls Frazier telling him he was going to recommend him for the job at Trinity. “People will perform for you because they know you care. Knowing Leslie, I know he cares. I know he cares about his players, their families, and his coaches. He genuinely cares about the people he works with. That is very transparent in his life and in his personality, and it is very real.”
Cabral said there is no other motivation for Frazier than to perform and to coach for the best of his players. He said Frazier has found the same benefit he discovered in coaching: You can influence the lives of men in a positive way.
“I believe we got into coaching at the college level for the same reason,” Cabral said. “It is because of the people who had an impact and influenced our lives as players that we saw being a coach and having the same influence and that same impact. Leslie moved on to the NFL and is making an impact and has made an impact on the guys at that level.”
The makings of a coach
Bob Williford and Dennis Coleman wish they could remember knowing Frazier would become a coach.
Some coaches can tell which players are suited to be a parent, coach, teacher, friend, and more to the men and women they lead.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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