His Guys: Former UM Baseball Coach Ron Fraser's Legacy Continues
Aug. 7, 2006
By Tracy Gale
(www. hurricanesports.com) – – After a coach’s retirement people look to his won-lost record to see what kind of success he had. With over 1,200 wins, two national championships, 150 players signed to pro contracts, and more than two dozen coach-of-the-year honors, Ron Fraser, the University of Miami head baseball coach from 1963 through 1992, would impress anyone who judged on numbers alone. But career stats don’t begin to cover Fraser’s impact on his sport, the University of Miami, and perhaps most of all to those who played for him.
Ron Fraser’s appointment as Miami’s baseball coach is a kind of foreshadowing of the public relations pizzazz he’d become so well-known for. After graduating from Florida State in 1960, Fraser was hired to coach in Holland. He spent three years there, leading the Dutch national team to three straight European baseball championships.
When he returned to the U.S. Fraser was invited to appear on the popular game show, `What’s My Line?’ where celebrities would try to guess which guest had a particular job. Fraser stumped them all during his turn on national television. It so happens that Jack Harding, UM’s athletic director and head football coach, was watching the program. Harding decided Fraser should be the Hurricanes next baseball coach.
“I was thrilled to be offered the job as head baseball coach at Miami,” Fraser says. “Unfortunately the job only paid $2,200 a year. I’d get a check for $1,100 every six months!’
A man with a young family, the Coach had to get a second job as well. So it came to be that for the first 10 years Ron Fraser was UM’s baseball coach he was also running the athletic programs at the Coral Gables Youth Center.
“I’d be at the Youth Center every day until about 1 p.m. Then I’d drive to campus, and accomplish what I had to in the baseball office. Then we’d practice.”
Before Mark Light Field and the crowds and the promotions and that famous “Phantom” pick-off play in the 1982 College World Series, there were just day baseball games, played on a lumpy field in front of maybe a dozen people…with some very smelly baseballs.
“We didn’t have much of an equipment budget,” laughs Fraser. “We had to rinse practice balls in milk to make them look white and new for games!”
Those were the days when Hurricane baseball was played in wool uniforms– bought used where the previous team name could still be seen.
Jerry Reisman, a prominent Miami attorney who was an infielder on Fraser’s first teams at UM, remembers those washed baseballs, along with how practices were always set up like a full game. He also remembers Fraser as the great storyteller, even in his early days.
“Except back in 1963 he wasn’t much older than the players,” laughs Reisman. “He would make fun of us…and vice versa!”
Reisman likes to tell about an early struggle with UM administration over an invitation to play in the NCAA regional tournament.
“UM President Henry King Stanford said we couldn’t go because the regional tournament was during final exam week. So Coach Fraser organized a `sit-in’ at President Stanford’s house.”
Fraser didn’t think it was fair: students from the music school were going on trips overseas and having exam schedules rearranged. So the team staged a protest at Dr. Stanford’s house.
“And guess what–we got to go! Our exam schedule was rearranged,” Reisman says. “I think this is where Ron learned how to appeal to the University’s higher-ups in later battles.”
It was a good thing Fraser already had some experience in creative thinking and problem solving, because even with the bare-bones budget, baseball was still considered a sport on the chopping block. In the 1960s the Hurricane athletic department, looking to trim costs, was trying to determine which sport should go–baseball or basketball. Fraser, to no one’s surprise, had a PR idea he hoped would save his fledgling program.
“I was up in New York,” says Fraser. “And [former major leaguer] Joe Garigiola was doing something I’d never heard of: motivational speaking. This was a new idea, athletes coming out on the banquet circuit like this. I listened to his speech and could see how fired up everyone in the crowd was. I thought, I gotta get this guy down to Miami.”
Somehow Fraser not only convinced Joe Garigiola to come down and give a speech, but he also got legendary slugger Stan Musial to participate as well. Musial was part of a group which owned a hotel in Miami, and Fraser worked on Stan `The Man’ to provide the hotel’s ballroom free of charge as the location. The event was a big success, leading to enough publicity, dollars, and excitement to keep the Hurricanes baseball program afloat.
Knowing how to generate interest and create publicity is a hallmark of Fraser’s legacy. Among many “firsts” in college baseball, he is responsible for the first college baseball game broadcast live on television and a [male] fan favorite for the past 30 years, the first batgirls–UM’s Sugarcanes. Fraser introduced his concept of co-eds acting as the pretty PR arm of the program the year before the Hurricanes made their first College World Series appearance in 1974.
A smiling Fraser will only say of the Sugarcanes, “Hey I just wanted to give people a reason to come to the ballpark every day.”
Randy Olen is the Senior Vice President of Brokerage Services for C.B. Richard Ellis in Miami, and knows the sly smile of Ron Fraser well. They get together several times a year for dinner or a round of golf. Olen may be more acutely aware of Fraser’s storytelling and PR skills better than most.
Olen, a catcher, played for the Hurricanes from 1969-1972. A Wisconsin native, Randy was set to play for Arizona State University when a scout told him he should take a long look at the University of Miami program. Olen and his mother made arrangements to come down and visit with Coach Fraser. Olen picks up the story:
“We flew down and checked in to a motel across from the University. Coach Fraser comes by and picks us up, and takes over to campus for a tour. We stopped by the business school, and then over to the student union (now the UC). I remember seeing that big Olympic-sized pool and being blown away–I had never seen a pool like that! Then it started raining. It was your typical South Florida summer afternoon boomer, but I didn’t know that then. Fraser says, `in 30 seconds it will stop.’ He makes a point to look at his watch and sure enough, in exactly 30 seconds the rain stopped. I thought man, he really is a wizard.”
Olen’s tour of the UM campus stopped there. He just didn’t know it at the time.
“After we walked through the middle of campus, we get back in Coach’s car. It was so hot and I remember asking if he could please turn on the air. But his car didn’t have air conditioning! We drove for about 10 minutes and Ron is talking about the program and who we’d be playing. Then we pull up to the most beautiful baseball field I had ever seen. He said to me, `You’ll be playing on that field soon.’ I was overwhelmed. That beautiful baseball field, along with everything else UM had to offer. So I accepted a partial scholarship to UM.”
Being his first time in Miami, Olen didn’t know where Fraser had taken him until he arrived that fall to go to school. Olen moved in to the dorms and prepared to start classes and play baseball. He showed up for the first practice and was surprised it was being held at a different field–this time much closer than the field the Coach showed him a few months earlier.
“You know that pretty ball field Ron drove my mom and me to?” Olen says, recalling the memory. “It was Dade South’s baseball field. He drove us to [Miami-] Dade South! At that first practice I said, `Coach, you showed me this beautiful baseball field.’ And he said, `Yeah, but I never told you it was UM’s baseball field. I just said you’d be playing on that field one day soon. And you will. We play them this season.'”
Asked about Fraser’s coaching style brings a chuckle from Olen.
“When I played Fraser was the third base coach. If you were rounding second base on your way to third, he’d have his left hand up, while his right hand was straight down by his knee. So you’d come into third standing up and if you were safe he’d say `good job’ and if you were out he would say `why did you miss the sign?!’ He was right either way!”
In the late-1970s and early 1980s Miami baseball became a fixture on the national collegiate scene, hosting Regionals and making the College World Series year after year. With no pro basketball, baseball or hockey, and with Hurricane football still a few years from prominence, it was just the Dolphins and `Canes baseball to capture South Florida sports fans. Fraser did everything he could to capitalize on the interest and audience. He hired college baseball’s first full-time marketing director, Rick Remmert. He also hired a young man from the University of South Carolina whose college job had been playing `Cocky’ the gamecock mascot. John Routh was `recruited’ to join the Hurricane baseball family in 1982. Routh says he had two job offers upon graduation: work as a fundraiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association or move to Coral Gables and be a college mascot. It was a no-brainer.
“Coach saw me perform the previous year in Omaha, and he thought that Miami needed its own mascot. The next season Miami played at South Carolina. During one game I sat next to Rick [Remmert] in the Gamecocks press box, and he wouldn’t stop talking about what a great opportunity it was to work for Hurricane baseball. I was offered a trip down to perform at the season-ending series with FSU. I came down and after one weekend I was sold.”
And so the beloved Miami Maniac was born.
Fraser’s continuing friendship with “his guys”–former players and staff–is apparent with one look at his datebook. Along with Remmert and many other former staffers, Routh regularly gets together with Coach. In fact, Routh was so happy that the Coach was in the inaugural induction class of the College Baseball Hall of Fame that he packed up some of his best Miami baseball memorabilia and brought it out to Lubbock, Texas, setting up a room full of “Fraser-ball” for all to see and enjoy. When Routh talks about what the Coach has meant to him he can be overcome with emotion.
“Look, because of Coach hiring me as Miami’s mascot, I’ve been around the world. I’ve performed all over Europe, Japan, and in 49 of 50 states. I always wanted to be part of the major leagues, and because of Ron Fraser, I got to be. I worked for the Marlins for 10 years because of my association with him. To say that he changed the entire course of my life is an understatement. When I think of Coach I think of the movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The way he has touched and influenced so many lives, the way he is there for so many people…You know how in that movie George Bailey gets to see what life would have been like if he hadn’t been born? …well I’d hate to think of what life would have been like if Ron Fraser hadn’t been born.”
It was during Fraser’s tenure that the Hurricanes became among the leaders nationally in attendance, including five straight years as the #1 draw in college baseball. The `Canes were a huge success on the field, but another reason fans kept coming night after night was because of some memorable promotions Fraser and his staff concocted. They included numerous vacation giveaways, the Miami Maniac’s “wedding”, and bikini day, where all the batgirls were in bikinis, fans who wore bikinis got in free, and if you brought binoculars you were charged double. From the legendary $5,000/plate dinner (which received national and international television coverage) to the lucky numbers giveaways, all were done with a wink and a smile–Fraser’s way of generating publicity and support for the game and University he loved so much.
“I just wanted to get the word our about how great college baseball was,” Fraser jokes. “I don’t know if in today’s climate you could have things like bikini day, but we had a lot of fun and it got people talking about Hurricanes baseball. It kept us in the paper.”
And what about the [in]famous promotion, the `car an inning’ giveaway?
“Well, I never said they were new cars! We had a hell of a time trying to start some of those cars and getting them moved.”
The legendary `wizard’ of college baseball indeed had the Midas touch when it came to promotions. But there was definitely an inauspicious start to Fraser’s Hurricane baseball publicity machine.
“You know, when I first started coaching college baseball no one paid to come to a game. It wasn’t the standard back then. I thought, I need to give people something to want to pay for. I loved college baseball so much and knew if people saw how hard our guys played they’d be hooked. I knew they would enjoy the experience and come back. But to charge them I had to give them something extra.”
And what he thought of was a skydiver. Fraser continues the story:
“I met this guy and he said, `I can skydive and land on second base, and I can deliver the game ball that way’. This sounded great! People would pay $1 to come and see a skydiver deliver the game ball! But I was still worried about the whole `pay to see a college baseball game’ thing. I talked it over with my good friend Harry Diehl about it. Harry, who was confined to a wheelchair said, `Put me in charge of collecting money and taking the tickets. They won’t grumble or say no to a man in a wheelchair!’ So that’s what we did! I talked it up and it made the papers. There were a lot of kids there, and we had a good crowd come to see the skydiver. Well it is game time and…no skydiver. We’re waiting and waiting and people start to boo! Still, no skydiver. We had to start the game, but I kept looking up wondering where my skydiver is.
In the fifth inning I get word that the skydiver has arrived. Seems he landed at the old Serpentarium, down on Dixie Highway, 50 blocks south. He had walked up U.S.1 with his skydiver pack and gear, finally making it to the game in the fifth. When I found out he was at the front gate I charged him a dollar, too.”
With all of his personal honors and two national championship rings, it may be surprising to hear what Fraser considers the biggest thrill of his career:
“There’s no doubt about it. The biggest thrill, the biggest moment for me was looking out and seeing crowds lined up, literally, around the block, to get into a game at Mark Light. I couldn’t believe it,” the smile apparent in Fraser’s voice as he talks about it. “People were that excited to get into a college baseball game. The line was just huge.”
Four-year starter Doug Shields, a fan favorite from the early 1980s, says the Coach always got his teams ready for big series. Shields loved everything about playing baseball at UM, but he’s thankful for more than the chance to play baseball in the big-time atmosphere Fraser created. Shields says he also got them thinking about life after baseball, something many athletes don’t want to prepare for.
“Every day when I’d show up for practice, Coach would be like ‘Come here’,” Shields says. “He’d discuss the business section of the paper with me. We’d look at pork belly futures or what the stocks did that day. Every day he’d impress upon me how important it was to prepare for life after baseball. Coach Fraser told me it didn’t matter if I played for the Yankees for 15 years or if I never played after my UM career ended–there was life after baseball and I better be prepared for it.”
Shields took the advice to heart, earning his business degree. After being drafted by the Expos a serious knee injury cut short his pro career. Now president of the family roofing business in Tampa, Shields is among many former players who regularly get together several times a year with the Coach and his family.
After wrapping up his illustrious 30-year UM coaching career in 1992, Fraser served as lead fundraiser for the University of Miami’s Cornerstone Campaign. Now retired, he and wife Karen travel often, including to the 2006 College World Series. They split their time between Weston, Florida and their summer home in North Carolina.
Their Weston home provides ample opportunity to play golf and socialize with many former players and staff who are now considered among their dearest friends. Most important is the time spent with the three `Fraser girls’ known to so many of the Mark Light regulars: daughters Cynthia, Linda, and Liz all live close by, so Coach’s five grandkids spend a lot of time with their `Peepah.’
Ron Fraser attends many University events and reunions, always happy to visit with his Hurricane family. At the 2006 UM Sports Hall of Fame induction dinner he was thrilled to see longtime Mark Light PA announcer Jay Rokeach receive an award. Coach first hired Rokeach as a student manager in 1968. `JayRo’ as he is affectionately known by players and the legions of fans who hear him each night at the Light came to Coral Gables from Brooklyn, where he had grown up a passionate basketball fan. He hoped to get a job with the Hurricane basketball program, only to be told they had no openings. His next stop was the baseball office. Thus began a 40-year relationship with Coach Fraser and University of Miami baseball, both associations which continue to this day.
The street in front of the UM baseball complex is called Ron Fraser Way. The first floor of Richter Library is the setting for the Ron Fraser Reading Room. There are two national championships, dozens of civic awards and plaques, and six Hall of Fame inductions. Yet none of these truly capture all that the Coach means to his family–both the related kind and his Hurricane family. Especially to his guys–the players, so many of whom are still in his life.
This was overwhelmingly confirmed at his July 2006 induction into the College Baseball Hall of Fame. Fraser was honored to be among the inaugural class to be sure. The weekend of festivities–the parade, induction ceremonies, the television coverage, and the banquet were all top-notch. A commemorative oil painting and the custom sterling silver belt buckle with that big ruby each inductee received? Stunning. But perhaps what says it all about the Coach’s remarkable life were the letters…so many letters. Close to 100 letters came in, from former players telling Coach how much they learned from him and what knowing him has meant to their lives.
Over and over again the recurring theme jumping off the page was `Coach, I want to be like you.’ It is no coincidence so many former players have gone in to coaching. The players Fraser refers to as “my guys” and “my players” wrote how they use him as their role model both in coaching and in their lives.
UM assistant baseball coach Gino DiMare was a four-year starter for the `Canes. Like a lot of players, Gino heard many of the Coach’s stories over and over again.
“He gave the greatest speeches,” DiMare says. You sometimes knew what story he was going to tell in a certain situation. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was just motivational. You might have heard it four straight years but it didn’t matter–each time you heard it you were ready to run through walls for him.”
DiMare realizes now just how much of an impact those speeches, and those four years spent playing for Fraser, really mean.
“Look, when you are young, between the ages of 18-21, your mind is on a lot of other things. You want to win. You’re not thinking about much past baseball and your own life. When you played for Fraser you knew you were playing for a big-time coach in a major program, but it’s when you’re out of that for a year or two you begin to realize just what he means to the game. From coaches and ex-coaches I meet, from other people in baseball, it never ceases to amaze me how important he is to college baseball.
And for me personally, I know how fortunate I am. Would I be coaching at the University of Miami if he didn’t recruit me to play here? Absolutely not. I learned a lot from him on and off the field. As a coach now I know what goes through your mind. I think about things he did in game situations, but also how he handled situations with players–life situations. I remember things he did and said. Coach Fraser has had a huge impact both on me and on my family.”
Ron Fraser’s coaching legacy stretches past the 30 years he led the `Canes on the field. His lessons on life, character, and oh yeah, the game of baseball are continually passed down through the players’ lives he touched. Annual team reunions give “his guys” a chance to touch base with the Coach who took them to the College World Series. But he also took them to other, life-changing events like those baseball-combined-with-medical-supply delivery trips each fall to Nicaragua and Columbia. Maybe they talk about the April Fool’s gags they played on Coach each year, the ones he always fell for. Or his superstitions or the punishments for getting caught out after curfew on road trips. Whatever, it’s a chance for yesterday’s boys of summer to reconnect with the man who helped them develop into who they are today.
They will forever be his guys.
