Advertisement

In his cramped, concrete-walled office at 1,000-student Doane College, Frazier spends the last few days before preseason practice lining up housing for his players, going over menus with the food service people, and hashing out travel itineraries.

Doane is located only 20 miles west of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. On the college football landscape, that’s a world away from where he carved his identity as Nebraska’s two-time national champion quarterback and 1995 Heisman Trophy runner-up.

Frazier, 31, doesn’t need this job. He left one as a fundraiser at Nebraska, where his formal title was assistant director of athletic development. He could have lived off being “Touchdown Tommie” for as long as he wanted.

No, he doesn’t need this job.

He wants it.

“There are some people who say, ‘Why would you do that to your reputation? Why would you go coach at Doane?’” Frazier said.

The simple answer is that he missed the game. He spent 1999 to 2002 as running backs coach at Baylor and was part of the purge that followed losses in 36 of 45 games.

Nebraska, which was about to embark on a $50 million facilities update, swooped in and hired Frazier to call on boosters for donations. “I enjoyed it,” Frazier said, “but it wasn’t my passion.”

With encouragement from his wife, Andrea, Frazier began looking for a coaching job last spring. He lost out on the running backs coach job at Michigan State to Ben Sirmans of Kent State.

Then the Doane job opened. The Tigers have been a traditional power in the NAIA ranks, but they have won only six games the last two years. They are picked 10th in the 11-team Great Plains Athletic Conference.

Nebraska Athletics Director Steve Pederson said he wasn’t surprised to see Frazier leave.

“I knew from the time Tommie came back that there was a part of him that wanted to coach,” Pederson said. “As we talked more and more the last couple years, he kept creeping back to wishing he was coaching.”

Frazier likes the challenge that awaits.

“It’s about coming out here and trying to teach young players who don’t have the ability to play on the Division I level who still want to play the game and get an education,” Frazier said. “What better thing is there than to go out and show people you can coach kids like that.

“You get more gratification out of that than you do coaching high school All-Americans. Great coaches are the ones who can take the guys who don’t have the talent and make them great, or make them good.”

Players and people around the program have been impressed with the humility Frazier has shown.

It was apparent from his interview for the job, said Fred Brown, whose last act before retiring as Doane’s president was hiring Frazier.

“He said, ‘Don’t hire me because I’m Tommie Frazier. Hire me because I’m the best guy for the job,’ “ Brown said.

“The fact he is a ‘name’ is obviously a plus. I call it a coup.”

John Reeves, general manager of the Crete News and an NAIA All-America offensive lineman for the Tigers in the mid 1980s, said Frazier is at Doane for the right reasons.

“He has a love of the game, and I think he’s looking forward to conveying that love regardless of the level,” Reeves said. “All that celebrity stuff he would rather put aside. He wants to X and O and coach football.”

To be sure, Frazier has instant credibility with his players.

Senior linebacker Jordan Crawford said that when he was growing up in Arapahoe, Frazier was his football hero.

Crawford repeated what many others say when asked about his memory of Frazier the player. He hearkens to Frazier’s breaking seven tackles during a 75-yard touchdown run against Florida in the national championship Fiesta Bowl game after the 1995 season.

“You can’t forget that run,” said Crawford, who was 11 at the time.

Frazier downplays the notion that players will be star-struck. He said many of the incoming freshmen were just out of diapers when he was playing.

“Even if they do know about me as a player, I still have to prove I can coach,” Frazier said.

Frazier, arguably one of the greatest triple-option quarterbacks of all time, takes over a program that used a pass-heavy offense last season under Fran Schwenk.

Asked what kind of offense he’ll employ, Frazier smiled and said: “A good one.”

After a long pause, he said, “I’m not saying, because there are 11 teams in this conference who are wondering what I’m doing on offense. I’m waiting for the first game.”

Frazier said he isn’t using the Doane job as a step on the coaching ladder. He said he has no immediate aspirations to return to Division I.

“My only priority right now is to make the Doane College football team the best it can be,” he said. “If going out and doing that gets (good) reviews and gets other schools to want me to work with them, that’s fine. But my loyalty is to Doane College.”