JACKSON — It was about an hour into the Friday night reception at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame when one of the organizers stepped up on the raised platform and fought to be heard above the laughing, chattering din.
When he had captured the attention of audience, he introduced each member of the 2017 Hall of Fame class and invited them up on the stage — Marcus Dupree, Bob Braddy, Jay Powell, the late Eugenia Connor (her brother is representing her this weekend), Rick Cleveland and Columbus native Leslie Frazier.
When the applause subsided, the organizer turned to the honorees and asked if anyone wanted to say anything. They all stood silent, mostly staring at their shoes — everyone that is except for Frazier, who, realizing the others would not speak, spoke on their behalf.
“We want to thank all of you for coming,” Frazier said.
It may seem like a small thing, but it was something that needed to be said.
Frazier has always been the sort to step up.
In the audience, Marino Casem, his old coach at Alcorn State, was not surprised.
“When something need to be done, all I had to do was pat him on the butt and say, ‘I need you.'” Casem said. “He stepped up every time.”
The man behind the resume
Frazier’s biography for the Hall of Fame ceremony notes his achievements as a player and coach — nine letters at Lee High (football, basketball and baseball), All-American in both football and baseball at Alcorn State and a key performer on the Chicago Bears’ defense in the early-to-mid-80s, a defense that is widely-regarded as one of the best in NFL history.
Then there is his coaching resume — head coach in Minnesota for three-plus seasons, defensive coordinator at Cincinnati, Minnesota, Tampa Bay and finally at Buffalo, a position he assumed in January. This will be his 19th season as an NFL coach.
Frazier, 58, has a Super Bowl ring as a player (1985 Bears) and as a coach (2006 Indianapolis Colts).
‘By the grace of God’
It is an impressive resume, certainly.
But it’s only part of the story, and maybe not even the most interesting part.
At almost every critical juncture in his career, Frazier could have gotten lost and quickly forgotten.
It could have stopped at Alcorn, where a knee injury his senior year almost denied him a shot at the NFL. He could have gotten lost at tiny Trinity International College, where a 27-year-old with no coaching experience was given the job of starting a football program he led for nine years, learning his craft in the obscurity of the lowest level of college football.
He could have stalled at one of the now seven stops on his NFL coach career, where assistant coaches’ fates are often tied to that of the head coach.
“It goes back even further than that,” Frazier said. “I could have gotten lost in Columbus.
“Think about it. Your mother and father aren’t around. You have a grandmother who is raising you and your two little brothers. There’s no one around to tell you when to come home at night, what to do,” he continued. “A lot of things could have gone wrong. There were so many times when I could have turned left when I should have turned right and sometimes that’s all it takes. You see it happen with so many kids. Only by the grace of God …”
A grateful spirit
The honorees did not give speeches at Saturday’s induction ceremonies. Instead, each inductee had their comments taped and played as a video. Frazier spent the time allotted to him thanking people.
“I just wanted to thank the people who made a difference for me, even though I’m sure I probably left out somebody. All along the way, there were always people that God put in my life and key moments.”
Among that list were recognizable names — Casem, himself a Hall of Fame member, along with NFL coaches Andy Reid and Tony Dungy. But most of the people whose memory he honored Saturday were the unfamiliar names of people now deceased — people like Trinity president Ken Meyer, youth baseball coach Charles Brown and Lee High assistant football coach Bill Hudnall.
“A lot of guys go off to college and you never hear from them again,” said Columbus Mayor Robert Smith, who was a coach at Lee High when Frazier was a two-way star for the Generals. “Leslie wasn’t like that. He stayed in touch. He’s always stayed touch. He doesn’t forget.”
Frazier said his first coach, Brown, may have played the most important role of them all.
“His son was my best friend,” Frazier recalled of his Little League coach. “That man took me into his home like I was his son. He’d show things to his son and take me along, too. He asked me if I wanted to play baseball. I didn’t know anything about baseball. I had never even thrown a baseball. But he signed me up. I got a baseball scholarship and was an All-American.”
At Lee High, Frazier quickly emerged at a three-sport star. But the time his senior year rolled around, Frazier was most established as a star running back and defensive back on the football team.
But that wasn’t enough for Hudnall. He wanted Frazier to do more.
“He worked with me after practice, showing me how to catch punts and hold for kicks,” Frazier said. “I’m thinking, ‘Why do I need to know how to do that?’ But he taught me anyway. He insisted. He said the more things I could do, the more it caught the eye of recruiters.”
When he arrived at Alcorn State as a freshman, the punt returner was injured the week before the first game and Casem had auditions for the job.
“The next thing I know, I’m catching punts in my first college game,” Frazier said. “… So many things have happened in my life that I didn’t understand when it happened, but you know later.”
From free agent to the Super Bowl and beyond
Despite earning All-American honors at Alcorn State, Frazier went undrafted out of college.
He had suffered a hamstring injury just before the first game of his senior season and hobbled through the year as best he could. He couldn’t work out for the NFL scouts, who quickly lost interest in him.
He signed a free-agent contract with Philadelphia, but failed the physical and headed back to Alcorn to finish his degree. That same summer, his agent arranged a tryout with the Bears.
“I went through the drills, but when it came to running the 40, I knew I couldn’t. I told them I wouldn’t run the 40,” Frazier said.
That raised a red flag with the Bears’ coaching staff.
“They called Coach Casem, wanting to know if I was a problem, if I was belligerent,” Frazier said. “Coach Casem told them, ‘If you sign Leslie Frazier, you’re getting a diamond in the rough and you’ll never regret it.’ When they told me what Coach had said, I just shocked. Coach had been hard on me, all of us. He never told me anything like that when I was playing for him. So I signed with the Bears and had a lot of success.”
Frazier led the team with 20 interceptions in five seasons, including six in the Super Bowl season of 1985.
Super Bowl XX, played on Jan. 26, 1986, wasn’t just the biggest game in Frazier’s career. It also was his last.
Frazier tore up his knee during a second-quarter punt return. His NFL career was over at age 26.
After two years of working to build up his knee, he finally got a call from the Seattle Seahawks. It was on the plane ride back to Chicago that he realized his “back-up” plan was his best option.
A good place to learn
“Dr. Meyer, the president at Trinity, had called me earlier and wanted me to be start the school’s football program,” Frazier said. “I have no idea why he thought I was the person for the job. I hadn’t coached at all, and I for sure had no idea what it would take to start a football program.”
He said he couldn’t have found a better place to learn.
“When they name the football field after you while you’re still there, well, you have an idea of how they supported me,” he said.
Frazier moved to the University of Illinois where he coached defensive backs for two seasons before Andy Reid hired him at Philadelphia.
His NFL coaching career, like his playing career, has had its share of disappointments.
He was fired as defensive coordinator at Cincinnati after a season in which the Bengals had the third best defense in the NFL. As a head coach in Minnesota, he was fired at the end of the 2013 season, just one year removed from leading the Vikings to the playoffs.
“I’ll tell you one thing about Leslie Frazier,” Smith said. “He can handle adversity. A lot of people would be bitter and have a right to be bitter. Leslie never has been.”
Back in Mississippi
The timing of the Hall of Fame ceremony was not ideal for Frazier, who is still getting to know his players as the Bills ramp up preseason practice.
Frazier never thought about sending his regrets, though.
Saturday, he was joined at the ceremony by his three adult children, his brothers and their families, friends from Columbus and some of his Alcorn teammates.
“It’s hard to put your mind around it,” Frazier said. “What I’m doing for a living, it’s always going, going, going. So when I got off the plane here, I had to shift my focus a little bit. I think it’s a good thing, a mental break.
“It’s good to be back in Mississippi,” he added. “I’m honored to be here.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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Leslie Frazier Photo by: Courtesy photo
