An off-the-field look at
f
the Huskers1 No. 1 man
w —Tommie Frazier.
By Tim Pearson
Tommie Frazier almost gave up hospital room, talked her son out of
football last year. coming home for good.
While lying in a hospital bed “When you’ve been playing a sport
at Bryan Memorial Hospital for 14 years,” Frazier said, “it’s hard
after a second blood clot was for a guy my age to go through. My
discovered on Oct. 4, 1994, Frazier mom sat me down and had a long talk
thought about packing his bags and with me, and she said, You can’t play
going back home to Bradenton, Fla. football the rest of your life.’”
During his junior year, Frazier went The discovery of the second clot
down with blood clots in his right devastated her son, Priscilla Frazier
leg, forcing him to miss seven games, said. He wanted so badly to be out on
and doctors feared that his football the football field again,
career was finished. Never had anything like this
Anu tnai Decame
Frazier’s worst fear
as well.
“I thought last year
was my last year
playing,” he said.
There would have
been none of
Frazier’s fourth
quarter heroics in
last year’s Orange
Bowl. No All
American honors
fV» i c AnH Via
I walked into the
hospital, and he was smiling
on the outside. But I could
tell he was hurting deep
inside.
Priscilla Frazier, Tommie's mother ^ |
happened to
him. For his
whole life, he
had wanted to be
on the field
leading his team.
Even in high
school, whenever
he was injured,
Frazier wouldn’t
sit out for more
than a game.
During his
- J llivat VVl UUlllJ
wouldn’t have been waiting for his
bags with his parents at LaGuardia
Airport in New York City the
morning of the Heisman Trophy
presentation.
But there he was on Dec. 9 waiting
at Baggage Claim Area 1 in the USAir
terminal listening to his Sony
Discman. His plane had been delayed
in Baltimore for 11/2 hours, but
Frazier didn’t mind. He was just glad
r to be there.
Thank his mother, who, in her son’s
junior year at
Manatee High School, a strained
ligament in the state semifinal game
couldn’t keep him out. Frazier put on
a brace and played.
But four years later, nothing could
be done to put Frazier back on the
field right away.
“The second clot threw him for a
loop,” Priscilla Frazier said. “With the
first, he was only going to be out five
or six weeks. That was all fine with
him.”
So after the second clot was
_ • Jeff Haller/DN
Frazier signs an autograph at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Staten Island,
N.Y. during his trip to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation.
discovered, she made the trip to Lincoln
to be with her son, to comfort him.
“I walked into the hospital, and he
was smiling on the outside,” she said.
“But I could tell he was hurting deep
inside. I had a talk with him and asked
him his true feelings.”
And he told her that his season was
over, and that he was really down about
having to undergo surgery.
“He had wanted to come home after
the surgery,” his mother said. “I said,
You will stay and get an education.’ I
told him that he needed to catch up on
the schoolwork that he had missed, and
that he had another year.”
But then the tide turned. Frazier
stayed in Lincoln and rehabilitated
while on blood thinners. And then he
was cleared to play against Oklahoma
in the final game of the regular
season. Coach Tom Osborne,
however, told doctors that he
wouldn’t put Frazier in the game
unless Brook Berringer was injured.
Frazier still made the trip to Norman,
though, much to the disappointment
of his mother.
mu i ^ T _ Travis Heying/DN
Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier is more than the Huskers' all-time winningest signal caller. He's a winner at
the game of life.