Bill Frieder: Forgotten Man at Final Four

The forgotten man and one of the most pursued men at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Final Four in Seattle is Bill Frieder, former coach of Michigan.

Frieder must feel like the guy who plays the same numbers in the lottery faithfully week after week. Except one week he forgets to play and ...

Michigan’s number came up. The Wolverines, of the Big Ten, are in the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament, and everybody wants to ask Frieder how it feels to be watching them instead of coaching them.

Frieder coached Michigan until two days before the start of the tournament when he was dismissed after taking the head coaching job at Arizona State University.

The ASU athletic department in Tempe won’t even say where Frieder is staying in Seattle. And Frieder isn’t sure he’ll be able to attend the games, fearing he may become something of a spectacle and detract from Michigan’s first appearance in the Final Four since 1976.

In answer to a flood of calls for interviews, Frieder has issued a statement through Arizona State’s sports information office.

“Certainly it’s an emotional thing for me that I haven’t been a visible part of the last two weeks, but I’ve been there in thought and in spirit,” Frieder’s statement said in part.

It is one of the most unusual situations the NCAA Tournament has ever produced: a team with an interim head coach, Steve Fisher, has responded to the head coach’s departure by charging to the Final Four. It has been bittersweet for Frieder to watch, and that feeling will be greatly compounded should Michigan win a national championship.

Frieder’s Michigan roots run deep. He was a high school coach in Flint, Mich., and was hired as an assistant coach in Ann Arbor when he doggedly refused to accept “no” as an answer.

The way the story goes, Frieder approached then Michigan Coach Johnny Orr at a golf tournament and asked him to hire him as an assistant. Orr put him off.

Later that day, Frieder made another pitch. Again Orr tried to discourage him. Then, figuring Orr had to stay someplace that night on the way home, Frieder followed him and collared him in the lobby.

Eventually, Frieder was told by the Michigan athletic director that he couldn’t hire Frieder because he wanted to save the position’s $14,000 salary. Frieder responded, “You have to give me a better reason than that because I’ll work for nothing.”

What could Michigan do but hire him? As Orr’s top assistant, Frieder was instrumental in recruiting explosive guard Rickey Green and slippery forward Phil Hubbard, the aces of Michigan’s 1976 trip to the Final Four.

That year, the Wolverines got to the championship game but lost to Indiana’s undefeated team of Scott May, Kent Benson, Quinn Buckner and Bobby Wilkerson.

Frieder’s reputation for recruiting overshadowed his coaching after he took over at Michigan when Orr went to Iowa State in 1980. But Orr doesn’t agree with those who feel Michigan might not have gotten to the Final Four if Frieder had not left.

“Don’t let anybody (tell) you that he isn’t a good coach,” Orr said. “The reason I hired him was I saw him win the (Michigan) state championship with a Flint Northern team that just blew teams away. He lost every guy but one and the next year he won the state championship again. He won by scores like 39-38. He completely changed his style of play.

“They (Michigan) would have done just as well if Bill had been coaching them.”

Frieder had a 191-87 (.688) record at Michigan, including two Big Ten titles and an NIT championship. The move to ASU prompted Michigan Athletic Director Bo Schembechler to order Frieder out immediately.

That Frieder took a $350,000 pay cut (down to $150,000) to go to ASU says something about how anxious he was to get out of an increasingly uncomfortable situation in Ann Arbor.

“The move was good for Bill,” Orr said just after a Seattle reunion with Frieder. “Obviously the timing was not the best. He feels badly that he isn’t coaching the team.”

Frieder, Orr said, is hoping Michigan wins the whole thing.

“I am extremely happy for Steve Fisher ... and the entire Michigan basketball team,” Frieder said in his prepared statement. “I’m happy for all the players. This is the type of thing we have been talking about since they came to the Michigan campus. What is happening to this team is the result of a lot of hard work over the years.”

The media have made a sentimental favorite out of Fisher, who has handled the situation with tact and humbly pointed out what North Carolina Coach Dean Smith said after his Tar Heels had been beaten by Michigan in the Southeast Regional:

“It is still Bill Frieder’s team.”