Friedgen Carries On Despite Constant Pain

Ralph Friedgen shuts his eyes, leans back and winces, the look on his face speaking volumes. Sitting in an overstuffed red leather chair, Maryland’s football coach looks like someone for whom every physical exertion is a struggle.

From an aching back to a pain that occasionally shoots down his right hip and into his leg, Friedgen is “not enjoying life right now as far as just getting around.” He uses a golf cart to make the short trip from his office to the practice field because walking is too difficult. He takes medication. He has worn a back brace. He is considering acupuncture.

For a 6-foot-1, 330-pound man who calls winning football games “the best thing in life,” this is the cost of business, and business is very good.

Coming off his second consecutive 10-victory regular season, Friedgen has won as many games in his two seasons as his three predecessors did in their tenures. And with a Dec. 31 date with Tennessee in the Peach Bowl, the next challenge beckons, the next chance to justify the ridiculous hours, the consuming lifestyle -- the next chance to win.

Never mind the diet that generated off-season conversation but took a backseat as the season heated up.

Never mind the chiropractor’s table that sits in the corner of his office, awaiting his next regular therapy session.

Never mind the two bulging disks in his back that have yet to respond to treatment, or the stenosis, a narrowing of spaces in the spine that creates pressure on the sciatic nerve in his lower back.

Never mind that cramming into an airplane seat -- a regular part of the job -- leaves him in such discomfort that he couldn’t sleep for two hours after returning home at 4:30 a.m. from a trip to Clemson.

“I lay here in bed and there’s this deep ache in my [bottom],” Friedgen, 55, said.

“I’ve got to get that fixed once the season is over because it is killing me. It’s not a lot of fun right now.... It’s been bothering me since in the spring. They tell me I need to exercise to make it better, but it’s tough to want to exercise when you have trouble walking.”

The next step, Friedgen said, might be to receive a spinal-block injection, something that usually is given to women just before childbirth. If that doesn’t work, Friedgen might try acupuncture.

“What the hell?” Friedgen said, noting that just standing in the cold weather often makes his back sore. “Might as well go through the whole gamut, right? The witch doctor, whatever.”

The jar of organic peanut butter remains atop the mini-fridge in his office and he continues to eat specially designed, nutrition-conscious meals, but Friedgen makes it clear that football is his top priority from the season’s first practice to the bowl game’s final whistle.

“We’re into the crunch now,” he said in early October, sheepishly admitting that he ate a cold cut hoagie on the bus ride to West Virginia and fried chicken and mashed potatoes on the ride home. “I could gain a lot of weight between now and the end of the season. I’m fighting it right now.”

Near the end of the season, Friedgen began developing pimples on his face. He was told to use medicated pads designed to combat acne, but those did not help, leaving him with what appeared to be a rash where his glasses might rest on the sides of his nose.

So as the team prepares for the Peach Bowl, Friedgen is trying to find time to see a dermatologist -- no easy task when you spend 16 hours a day working.

Taking a break from work might mean taking his focus off winning, and for Friedgen, winning is what it is all about.

“Best thing in life,” he said. “I just like to win. I enjoy it. It satisfies me.”

Friedgen shares that his oldest daughter, Kelley, is in law school but undecided whether to practice law or pursue teaching. For the elder Friedgen, whose job combines teaching with competition, the allure of an arena in which winners and losers are clearly defined is impossible to resist. After hearing his daughter’s indecision, he wondered, “How can you not want to be in the courtroom?”

That is why he is in the office before 6 every morning during the season after waking up moaning in pain. It is how he can spend nearly 1 1/2 hours studying 44 Virginia punts to try to detect a weakness. When it is said that some people might find such work monotonous, Friedgen said: “They don’t do my job. That’s my job.”

Friedgen is so focused on his team that more than a month into last season, he had to ask directions to his daughter’s high school.

Although Friedgen’s focus on football and his approach have not changed, his players and assistant coaches say he has become a little more flexible in dealing with the players. In particular, in the middle of the season, the team made a key strategic change, nearly eliminating traditional option plays because quarterback Scott McBrien struggled to run them.

“We learned to do what our players can do and not ask them to do something they are not ready for yet,” said Friedgen, who seems to view his football players like pieces on a chess board, constantly maneuvering for the best position. “Offensively, we’ve gotten better since we simplified things, allowed some kids to grow. To me, it’s a little boring.”

Regardless of whether it is boring, there is no questioning its success. No coach in ACC history has won more games in his first two seasons at a school. Before Friedgen arrived, Maryland had won 10 games in a season just four times, only once since 1955, and had played in one bowl game since 1990. Last season, the Terrapins won the ACC title and were invited to the Orange Bowl. This season, the team went into late November with a chance to win a share of the conference title and gain a Sugar Bowl berth.