Handy ‘Husker : Putting Out Fires or Winning Games, Frazier Is a Good Man to Have Around

Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier and teammates Barron Miles and Tyrone Williams had just moved into their rented house here last May when there was a knock.

A frantic mail carrier was at the door.

“Call 911!” he yelled. “The house across the street is on fire!”

Frazier and Miles ran across the street, scaled an eight-foot-high wooden fence at the rear, grabbed a garden hose and doused the fire, which had been caused by an electrical short.

“There’s a fire and you put it out,” Frazier told the Lincoln Star. “The people seemed pretty happy and somebody said we saved them a lot of damage. I’d do it again, but I don’t know if I’d want to do that for a living.”

Frazier and Miles had the fire under control by the time firefighters arrived, and damage was limited to the fiberglass patio roof.

The house Frazier saved is owned by Edwin and Sally Benes, whose son Keith is Nebraska’s student body president.

“I love telling the story to people that Touchdown Tommie Frazier saved my house,” Keith Benes said. “Usually the stories that you read about (athletes) off the field is that somebody was in a drug bust or got in a fight at a bar. You don’t think of them as being good Samaritans to the community.

“They didn’t have to go out of their way like that. Most people would have been satisfied to call the fire department and watch the pretty smoke go up in the air.”

Frazier didn’t tell anyone about his heroics, not even his mother.

“He had put it out just before he came home for the summer, but he didn’t mention it,” Priscilla Frazier said from her home in Bradenton, Fla. “But one of the reporters from Omaha called here to ask him about it, and that’s how I found out about it.”

The media picked up on the story when Keith Benes, who is on the Nebraska Board of Regents, mentioned it at a board meeting.

Frazier, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound sophomore who hopes to lead Nebraska to its third consecutive Big Eight championship this season, would rather discuss football than firefighting.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Frazier said. “I just believe it’s something that by nature you’d do.”

THE PLAYER

Most of Frazier’s heroics have occurred on the football field.

A prep All-American quarterback who passed for 2,600 yards and 30 touchdowns in his final two seasons at Manatee High in Bradenton, Frazier selected Nebraska over Notre Dame because he wanted to play immediately and would have had to wait until Rick Mirer graduated before he got a chance at Notre Dame.

Frazier got his shot at Nebraska when quarterback Mike Grant injured his back midway through last season.

The first true freshman to start at quarterback for Nebraska, Frazier passed for 727 yards and 10 touchdowns and rushed for 399 yards and seven touchdowns in leading the Cornhuskers to five victories in their final seven games, and an Orange Bowl berth.

Frazier has started fast this season, too.

After suffering a sprained ankle in Nebraska’s 76-14 season-opening victory over North Texas, he completed 12 of 28 passes for 206 yards and a touchdown as the No. 8 Cornhuskers drubbed Texas Tech last week, 50-27. Nebraska plays UCLA at the Rose Bowl Saturday afternoon.

“No, I didn’t surprise myself last year,” Frazier said. “I knew I could come in and was capable of playing. It all depended on how fast I learned the system.

“The way I see it, it doesn’t matter if you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. If you feel that you can go in and help the team win, then you should go in and show people that you’re capable of playing.”

A unanimous selection as the Big Eight newcomer of the year, Frazier impressed opposing coaches.

“He’s a quarterback I’d give up parts of my body to have for the next four years,” Iowa State Coach Jim Walden said.

Former Nebraska quarterback Turner Gill, who guided the Cornhuskers to three consecutive Big Eight titles in the early 1980s, said Frazier displayed more poise than Gill as a freshman.

“It’s unbelievable to me for him to come in and play as a freshman,” Gill said. “I remember myself as a freshman, and I didn’t feel like I was ready to play at that time. They asked me if I wanted to get a good look on the varsity when I came here, but I set my goal to be the (starting) quarterback as a sophomore and I asked to play on the freshman team.”

Gill, hired last year as the first quarterback coach in the Tom Osborne era, serves as a “big brother” to Frazier.

“Coach Gill has been a big help to me because he knows the offensive system because he played in it,” Frazier said. “Knowing that you have a guy who played quarterback for Coach Osborne helps.”

Like Gill, Frazier is a celebrity in this football-mad state, where fans worship the Cornhuskers.

“It’s fun at the beginning, then it starts getting boring,” Frazier said. “I went out to dinner with my family when they came up to visit me, and all of a sudden there were all these people surrounding us and I didn’t have any peace and quiet to eat dinner.

“But I guess I’ve got to expect that because I’m Nebraska’s starting quarterback. I never turn anyone down for an autograph.

“I’ve got an unlisted phone number, but it seems like when one person gets it the whole city of Lincoln has it. But I’ve got caller ID and if (the incoming caller is from a telephone number) I don’t know, I don’t answer the phone.”

THE ROLE MODEL

Charles Barkley may not want to be a role model, but Frazier, whether he wants to be or not, knows he is one. He takes his responsibility seriously.

He is a volunteer speaker in the Lincoln schools, warning kids about the dangers of drugs and gangs.

“The neighborhood we live in, we had drugs all the way around us,” Frazier’s mother said. “He’s trying to show the kids that if he can overcome the drugs and not take them and better his life, they can do it also.”

Part of Frazier’s message is on gun control.

When he was 6, he was accidentally shot in the stomach with a pellet gun by an older brother.

“He was cleaning it and he thought he had the safety on,” Frazier said. “It was at close range and the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital. The doctor said if (the pellet) had stayed in there another day or two, it probably would have damaged my kidney.

“And ever since that day, I’ve always hated guns. To hear somebody rapping on the radio about going out in the streets and selling (automatic weapons), I see no need for that. We’ve got blacks killing blacks, and we don’t need that.

“We need to be sticking together as much as we can instead of going out and killing people over money and drugs.

“When I was home this summer, I went to a correctional institute for kids and a lot of them were telling me that the white man put them there. But I told them, ‘It was you who got you here because you were stealing cars at 10 or 11 years old and they’re just keeping you here to make sure you don’t do it again.’

“I know I touched some of them. They’re our future. They’re going to keep our culture going after we’re gone, and they’re going to pass it down to their kids. I just want the best thing for our culture.”