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Fresno State track coach Fraley to retire
The Fresno Bee
02/15/08 11:55:00






Longtime Fresno State track and field coach Bob Fraley announced today that he will retire at the end of this season.

Fraley is concluding his 28th year at Fresno State, his alma mater, and his eighth as the director of track and field. His programs have produced NCAA championship athletes and Olympians.
"I'm 70 years of age, and I've been in education for 48 and I'm ready to retire," Fraley said. "I came to Fresno State as a teacher and a coach, and it's unbelievable to me that I have gone as far as I did. Never did I ever believe, not in my wildest dreams, did I think that I would coach at the university level. I have had some great opportunities because of working at Fresno State, things I wouldn’t have experienced without this university. As I look back upon this, I know that doors have been opened for me because of my time at Fresno State."

Fraley's leadership brought to fruition the "Run for the Dream" event at the Save Mart Center, which brought together the highest caliber high school and college athlete from the West, as well as elite international competitors. In a relationship with USA Track and Field, Fraley convinced organizers to add this event to the prestigious VISA Series. In addition, Fraley created the popular North American Pole Vault event held each August in downtown Clovis. He will continue to assist with both of those projects.

"We are humbled to announce the retirement of Coach Fraley and look forward to the opportunity to honor him as one of the all-time great contributors to Fresno State athletics and the sport of track and field," Fresno State athletic director Thomas Boeh said in a release. "Through 27 years of enthusiasm, commitment and extraordinary work, Coach Fraley has been a positive influence on the lives of countless Bulldog student-athletes both on and off the track. We are grateful for all that he has accomplished on behalf of Fresno State and look forward to his continued pursuit of his passions and development of his special events, including the his latest contribution to our community, the Run for the Dream."

Check FresnoBee.com for updates throughout the day and read The Fresno Bee tomorrow for further details.

http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/jam ... 02590.html

Decades can't dim Fraley's spark
By Matt James / The Fresno Bee
02/16/08 22:05:22

The man is focused, just never on himself.

On the afternoon it was announced that Bob Fraley would be retiring as the track and field coach at Fresno State, he was out of town, the guest speaker at West Hills College in Coalinga.
He talked to a group of employees that were neither professors, nor administrators. "Classified," as they're known in the education world, the groundskeepers and secretaries and janitors that make it all work. His people.

"You guys are the face of this school," he recalled telling them.

He also spent a good portion of the day thinking about Steven Kazmierczak, the 27-year-old who had shot and killed five students the day before at Northern Illinois University.

Fraley had no connection to the shooter, but his speech, coincidentally, did. He has a one-page handout with his speeches. On one side are the words, "Light a Spark. Become a Role Model."

On the other side is a photocopied drawing of a man in a boat. Around the boat swim sharp-toothed sharks. Above the boat is a thick cloud with jagged lightning. Ahead, is a tropical island. Behind, the man's family, friends and role models wave from a dock.

"Some days the sea is smooth as glass," the caption read, "while at other times the sea is rough and violent, with sharks encircling the ship, leaving the man traveling the rough waters in despair and wondering what the future holds."

At the bottom, Fraley cites a Dartmouth Medical School study that claims nurturing can eliminate the effects of genes that cause aggression, anxiety, depression and substance abuse.

Fraley sat in the parking lot after his speech wondering what had happened in the Northern Illinois shooter's life, what could have been done to change its outcome.

No, Bob Fraley was never just your average track and field coach.

There is more to his presentation, but the point is you don't need a Ph.D. to make a difference in someone's life.

"You can challenge kids at any level if you take the time," he said later. "Do you realize how impersonal education has become? E-mail. Computers. We don't connect in a meaningful way."

As Fraley drove back to Fresno on Friday, a young woman named Elly called from Fresno State. She wanted a statement for his retirement press release. He told her he'd call back in 10 minutes. He was already choked up.

Later, he would recall looking out toward the fields where he worked as a young man, where his dad, Bill, spent a gritty life. (Fraley didn't even go to his own college graduation. He and his wife, Elaine, chopped cotton that day. They were married after his sophomore year of college, and all 49 school years since. Never been unfaithful to her, he says, and doesn't wink.)

He thought about those hellish summer afternoons working in the fields, so hot you would just daydream.

"You had to dream to get through it," he says. "What if I could be something? But I never dreamed anything like what happened."

How do you cram 28 years of college coaching in a quote? How do you stuff 48 years of teaching into a statement?

What a career. What a life.

At Laton High, Fraley coached Ron Adams, now an assistant for the Chicago Bulls. At Lemoore High, he coached Lawrence Jones, who set the California record in the 400-meter dash, then played for the Redskins.

He coached dozens of All-Americans at Fresno State. A future Olympian, Rosey Edeh, who made three different Games for Canada in the 400 hurdles. She's a TV personality now.

In his sport, the pole vault, Fraley helped 14 different men clear at least 17 feet, including his son, Doug, who won three NCAA championships. Fraley's been national coach of the year. He started a popular street vault competition, gave Fresno a professional indoor track meet, led a vaulting summit in Reno, and been president of national associations. He helped start the women's track program at Fresno State.

At 70, the man is still one of the sport's most enlightened and innovative, a track and field icon. Although that had about as much chance of getting in his retirement quote as his Social Security number.

After 28 years, he didn't even have a farewell news conference, just talked to reporters at practice.
"This is not about me," he says. "My gosh. I've gotten so much attention. It's the kids. My job is to light a spark for the betterment of society."

Fraley's spark is another man's raging blaze.

He has affected and inspired thousands, for a thousand different reasons. His Clovis street vault is a party where pro vaulters run right down Pollasky Avenue, launch as high as the buildings, with Fraley's wife blaring the tunes.

A pole vault judge from Los Angeles named Fred Arnold was once so impressed with Fraley's son at an event, he asked to meet his father. That led to a friendship, and years later Arnold gave $1 million for an indoor track that saved Fraley's Run for the Dream.

Two years ago, Bob and Elaine were driving through Oklahoma when they were pulled over for speeding. The officer asked Bob to come back and sit in his patrol car.

At some point, Bob mentioned he was the track coach at Fresno State. The officer about fell out of his uniform. I read about you in Sports Illustrated! You're the guy who gave up his salary to save track!

They ended up talking for 20 minutes on the side of the road and Fraley said the officer voided the ticket.

Yes, he's that Bob Fraley. In 2003, the one who looked at the Fresno State athletic director holding a budget problem in one hand and an ax in the other and told him if he was going to chop something, it could be Fraley's six-figure salary. This is his fifth season Fraley has worked for free, though he and his wife live on a pretty sweet pension.

"We got by just fine," he says.

So why retire now? The administration tells him they won't cut track and can afford a coach. He pulled a program through danger.

He and Elaine still live in the little condo a block from campus, the one they moved into in 1983. They have college kids for neighbors.

"It's not bad," Elaine laughs. "You get used to anything."

Remember Fraley's aging car that Rick Reilly wrote about in SI five years ago? They drove that Saturn right into its grave and bought an Impala.

So now what?

"I'm really anxious to see what next year might bring," Elaine says. "He can't sit still. I can't wait to see what his next career will be."

Well lately Fraley's been on a mission to convince Fresno State administrators they need to take more junior college athletes. They're seen as a risk because of the NCAA's APR (academic progress rate), the grade that can punish a school whose athletes don't do well in the classroom.

The concept isn't bad, but it's making schools avoid junior college transfers, especially for non-money-making sports like track.

That trend irks Fraley, a poor farm kid who had a 2.2 GPA in high school, went to junior college and misspelled "Oregon" on an English paper at College of the Sequoias. He still remembers the teacher's why-are-you-in-college scowl.

But he got into Fresno State, even lettered his junior year in track.

"You've got schools that don't want to take a chance on these athletes," Fraley says. "You don't know what people are going to do. I've had so many athletes in 48 years that nobody thought could make it and turned out to be something."

Hmmm. Wonder how that happened?

So I guess this will be the end of Fresno's men's program? The only thing that kept it from getting the ax was Fraley working for free..