Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Bigger Than Football
10/7/2015 4:52:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
The infection appeared unexpectedly. Even now its origin is unknown. Then it went septic, and entered his blood stream, and suddenly the issue was not his football future, suddenly the question was not whether he would ever again play that game. The crucible here was far more serious as the doctors attended him. "They were mainly focused on having me survive, honestly, in the hospital," explains the senior guard Matt Frazier.
"That conversation (about his football future) didn't come up until afterwards. Once I was kind of in the clear and they knew I wasn't going to die, that's when I started questioning, 'Will I be able to play football again?'"
Did he ever think he was going to die?
"I didn't really know how bad it was until I was past that point, until I was in the clear. But looking back on it, yeah, it was pretty close. It was scary. . . . One of the harder things was seeing my dad, the fear in his eyes. He's my rock. He's bulletproof. Seeing in his eyes, he didn't show it on the outside. But I could tell. He was nervous. That frightened me. But he was with me the whole time there. My mom as well. My sister was with me the whole time. That really helped me get through it. Coach Fitz (Pat Fitzgerald), Dr. (Jim) Phillips (the athletic director), all my teammates-- they helped me get through it as well."
Two Tuesdays ago a surprise awaited the 'Cats as they gathered before their toughest practice of the week. For there with them, in uniform, was Matt Frazier, who brought them up and then talked to them before breaking them down. "He was just excited and ready to go. He was just excited to be back playing football," the corner Nick VanHoose says when asked what message the guard delivered with his words. "If you get a guy that loves playing football, loves what he's doing, it's great to have him come onto the field. It (the attitude) basically just spreads like wildfire."
"Honestly, it was just exciting to see him back. For me, it didn't matter what he said," adds the superback Dan Vitale. "For me it was just exciting to see Matt back in pads and excited to be there and playing football. He wasn't sure if he would be able to do that again."
"To be honest, I didn't think he'd be back until November at the earliest. So it was awesome having him back, it was very surprising," concludes the offensive tackle Geoff Mogus. "It gave us a bunch of juice, gave us a bunch of energy. It makes you really think. You never know when it's going to be your time, when your career can be done. So you've got to play every play like it's your last. To see him out there, it energized us. We rallied around him."
He started all of the 'Cats dozen games last year and was honored as a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar, an award that goes only to those student-athletes with a GPA of 3.7 or higher. But from its very start Matt Frazier's off-season was distinguished only by the roadblocks it threw down in front of him. In January he had surgery on his right ankle and, a month later, he had the same on his left. "That was just getting some things fixed that had been bothering me. That was routine stuff, just to get some stuff cleaned up in there," he recalls, but what followed was hardly routine.
For three weeks later, while his left foot was still encased in a cast, doctors discovered he had a herniated disc and so now he underwent back surgery. "It was impinging my spine by about 70 percent. I wasn't getting any flow through my spinal cord," he explains. "I just woke up one morning and it was hurting me. I was in surgery later that day."
Slowly he recovered from that procedure and, by summer's start, he was once again working out. But now, in early July, he tore his left pectoral muscle, and then later that month that potentially-fatal infection invaded his pelvis. For 10 days now he remained in the hospital, three of them in the intensive care unit (ICU) as the doctors worked to keep him alive. "I told him-- all these guys, I treat them like my own sons. So it was very emotionally difficult," offensive line coach Adam Cushing says when asked how he reacted to seeing Frazier in the hospital.
"The thing about Matt, he comes from a tremendous family, tremendous support. So one thing I knew, obviously he was well-cared for there. But that's hard. As a coach to see somebody, and to know what Matt has put in to achieve his goals, and to achieve his team goals-- it looked like it might be taken away from him."
But it was more than that. It was a life-and-death thing.
"It was. It was," says Cushing. "So I was very emotional. I really was."
"Yes. Absolutely," tackle Eric Olson says when asked if he knew the seriousness of his friend's condition. "We talked to his parents and they told us. Mr. (Bret) Frazier, the offensive line's really close to him, and he told us there was a point where doctors just didn't know what was going on. It was in his blood, so they just couldn't really tell what was going on, so he was just sitting there deteriorating. It was terrifying. To see him like that was sad."
"At first, I wasn't really sure (how serious it was)," says Mogus. "Then when I saw him, he was in a lot of pain. He couldn't walk. So that was tough. He had some IVs. He was on a bunch of meds. He was doing better when I went to see him. He had finally eaten that day. He had a B.C.O. from Bluestone (Restaurant on Central Street). It's the O line's favorite sandwich at Bluestone. It was pretty exciting to see him eat that for the first time. But he was out of it. When we talked to him, he was actually falling asleep as we were talking to him."
"Things weren't looking that great. I was in my own head a little bit and I was feeling sorry for myself," Frazier himself finally says, recounting his mindset through this tenuous-and-trying time. "One of my lowest days was when Coach Fitz came to visit and Dr. Phillips. When they left, I started thinking, 'I hope I get to play for this man again, this university.' Then when all my teammates were able to visit me, I started thinking about that as well. Just thinking, 'I hope I can play with these guys again.' So I wasn't really sure."
He still wasn't sure even when he was finally discharged from the hospital.
"They sent me out," he goes on, "I had a PICC line in, so I had to give myself antibiotics through my IV every eight hours. I did that for 40 days, I believe. Then they said it all depends on how you're progressing when you can start doing things. This is a very unique case. There's no real standard. There's nothing we can go off of. This is all depending on how you feel and how you progress."
He lost 25 pounds while in the hospital and, when he was finally cleared to lift again in early September, his strength was woefully diminished. "He was able to do, machine-based, very light," remembers Jay Hooten, the 'Cats director of football performance. "He's one of our strongest guys, but you're talking about 135. That's where he started from and we just kind of built him up from there. . . .Now everything's good. It's good to have him back."
He is back to lifting better than 300 pounds, and his weight is back up to its normal 305, and--most remarkably, considering his condition just 10 weeks ago--he himself is back laboring in The Pit after making an emotional return last Saturday against Minnesota. "To see him get an opportunity to play the game again, first of all, was something special," Pat Fitzgerald said that afternoon. "I couldn't be more happy for him. I couldn't be more happy for his family. And he's a leader, a big-time leader. To get him back out there again-- I have no idea of how he played. But I don't know that I've seen a bigger smile on a player's face than I saw on Fraz's face."
"It was emotional on Saturday when I got a chance to see him go out there and put the uniform on," Cushing will add three days later. "I love him to death, I really do, because he's literally given me everything he's had, given this team everything he's had. And he's grown a ton since he's been here. You saw him developing into what he is right now. He didn't come here as a ready-made guy. It wasn't, quite frankly, a yellow-brick-road for him in his career. He had to fight through a lot of things. He had to fight to earn playing time. He did it himself. So to see him get a chance to get back out there with his brothers was a great thing."
"It's unbelievable that he's back," Olson will avow a day after that. "When we saw him in the ICU, we didn't believe he was going to be able to play again. It's unbelievable."
"I just think of how lucky I am to be here, how lucky I am to be playing this game," Matt Frazier himself will finally conclude. "I guess I took it for granted before. Now that I almost had it taken away from me, honestly I'm excited for tomorrow. I'm excited to get up tomorrow whatever time I have to get up and practice.
"And every time I get tired out there, I just think, 'It's not really that bad in the grand scheme of things.'"
NUsports.com Special Contributor
The infection appeared unexpectedly. Even now its origin is unknown. Then it went septic, and entered his blood stream, and suddenly the issue was not his football future, suddenly the question was not whether he would ever again play that game. The crucible here was far more serious as the doctors attended him. "They were mainly focused on having me survive, honestly, in the hospital," explains the senior guard Matt Frazier.
"That conversation (about his football future) didn't come up until afterwards. Once I was kind of in the clear and they knew I wasn't going to die, that's when I started questioning, 'Will I be able to play football again?'"
Did he ever think he was going to die?
"I didn't really know how bad it was until I was past that point, until I was in the clear. But looking back on it, yeah, it was pretty close. It was scary. . . . One of the harder things was seeing my dad, the fear in his eyes. He's my rock. He's bulletproof. Seeing in his eyes, he didn't show it on the outside. But I could tell. He was nervous. That frightened me. But he was with me the whole time there. My mom as well. My sister was with me the whole time. That really helped me get through it. Coach Fitz (Pat Fitzgerald), Dr. (Jim) Phillips (the athletic director), all my teammates-- they helped me get through it as well."
Two Tuesdays ago a surprise awaited the 'Cats as they gathered before their toughest practice of the week. For there with them, in uniform, was Matt Frazier, who brought them up and then talked to them before breaking them down. "He was just excited and ready to go. He was just excited to be back playing football," the corner Nick VanHoose says when asked what message the guard delivered with his words. "If you get a guy that loves playing football, loves what he's doing, it's great to have him come onto the field. It (the attitude) basically just spreads like wildfire."
"Honestly, it was just exciting to see him back. For me, it didn't matter what he said," adds the superback Dan Vitale. "For me it was just exciting to see Matt back in pads and excited to be there and playing football. He wasn't sure if he would be able to do that again."
"To be honest, I didn't think he'd be back until November at the earliest. So it was awesome having him back, it was very surprising," concludes the offensive tackle Geoff Mogus. "It gave us a bunch of juice, gave us a bunch of energy. It makes you really think. You never know when it's going to be your time, when your career can be done. So you've got to play every play like it's your last. To see him out there, it energized us. We rallied around him."
He started all of the 'Cats dozen games last year and was honored as a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar, an award that goes only to those student-athletes with a GPA of 3.7 or higher. But from its very start Matt Frazier's off-season was distinguished only by the roadblocks it threw down in front of him. In January he had surgery on his right ankle and, a month later, he had the same on his left. "That was just getting some things fixed that had been bothering me. That was routine stuff, just to get some stuff cleaned up in there," he recalls, but what followed was hardly routine.
For three weeks later, while his left foot was still encased in a cast, doctors discovered he had a herniated disc and so now he underwent back surgery. "It was impinging my spine by about 70 percent. I wasn't getting any flow through my spinal cord," he explains. "I just woke up one morning and it was hurting me. I was in surgery later that day."
Slowly he recovered from that procedure and, by summer's start, he was once again working out. But now, in early July, he tore his left pectoral muscle, and then later that month that potentially-fatal infection invaded his pelvis. For 10 days now he remained in the hospital, three of them in the intensive care unit (ICU) as the doctors worked to keep him alive. "I told him-- all these guys, I treat them like my own sons. So it was very emotionally difficult," offensive line coach Adam Cushing says when asked how he reacted to seeing Frazier in the hospital.
"The thing about Matt, he comes from a tremendous family, tremendous support. So one thing I knew, obviously he was well-cared for there. But that's hard. As a coach to see somebody, and to know what Matt has put in to achieve his goals, and to achieve his team goals-- it looked like it might be taken away from him."
But it was more than that. It was a life-and-death thing.
"It was. It was," says Cushing. "So I was very emotional. I really was."
"Yes. Absolutely," tackle Eric Olson says when asked if he knew the seriousness of his friend's condition. "We talked to his parents and they told us. Mr. (Bret) Frazier, the offensive line's really close to him, and he told us there was a point where doctors just didn't know what was going on. It was in his blood, so they just couldn't really tell what was going on, so he was just sitting there deteriorating. It was terrifying. To see him like that was sad."
"At first, I wasn't really sure (how serious it was)," says Mogus. "Then when I saw him, he was in a lot of pain. He couldn't walk. So that was tough. He had some IVs. He was on a bunch of meds. He was doing better when I went to see him. He had finally eaten that day. He had a B.C.O. from Bluestone (Restaurant on Central Street). It's the O line's favorite sandwich at Bluestone. It was pretty exciting to see him eat that for the first time. But he was out of it. When we talked to him, he was actually falling asleep as we were talking to him."
"Things weren't looking that great. I was in my own head a little bit and I was feeling sorry for myself," Frazier himself finally says, recounting his mindset through this tenuous-and-trying time. "One of my lowest days was when Coach Fitz came to visit and Dr. Phillips. When they left, I started thinking, 'I hope I get to play for this man again, this university.' Then when all my teammates were able to visit me, I started thinking about that as well. Just thinking, 'I hope I can play with these guys again.' So I wasn't really sure."
He still wasn't sure even when he was finally discharged from the hospital.
"They sent me out," he goes on, "I had a PICC line in, so I had to give myself antibiotics through my IV every eight hours. I did that for 40 days, I believe. Then they said it all depends on how you're progressing when you can start doing things. This is a very unique case. There's no real standard. There's nothing we can go off of. This is all depending on how you feel and how you progress."
He lost 25 pounds while in the hospital and, when he was finally cleared to lift again in early September, his strength was woefully diminished. "He was able to do, machine-based, very light," remembers Jay Hooten, the 'Cats director of football performance. "He's one of our strongest guys, but you're talking about 135. That's where he started from and we just kind of built him up from there. . . .Now everything's good. It's good to have him back."
He is back to lifting better than 300 pounds, and his weight is back up to its normal 305, and--most remarkably, considering his condition just 10 weeks ago--he himself is back laboring in The Pit after making an emotional return last Saturday against Minnesota. "To see him get an opportunity to play the game again, first of all, was something special," Pat Fitzgerald said that afternoon. "I couldn't be more happy for him. I couldn't be more happy for his family. And he's a leader, a big-time leader. To get him back out there again-- I have no idea of how he played. But I don't know that I've seen a bigger smile on a player's face than I saw on Fraz's face."
"It was emotional on Saturday when I got a chance to see him go out there and put the uniform on," Cushing will add three days later. "I love him to death, I really do, because he's literally given me everything he's had, given this team everything he's had. And he's grown a ton since he's been here. You saw him developing into what he is right now. He didn't come here as a ready-made guy. It wasn't, quite frankly, a yellow-brick-road for him in his career. He had to fight through a lot of things. He had to fight to earn playing time. He did it himself. So to see him get a chance to get back out there with his brothers was a great thing."
"It's unbelievable that he's back," Olson will avow a day after that. "When we saw him in the ICU, we didn't believe he was going to be able to play again. It's unbelievable."
"I just think of how lucky I am to be here, how lucky I am to be playing this game," Matt Frazier himself will finally conclude. "I guess I took it for granted before. Now that I almost had it taken away from me, honestly I'm excited for tomorrow. I'm excited to get up tomorrow whatever time I have to get up and practice.
"And every time I get tired out there, I just think, 'It's not really that bad in the grand scheme of things.'"
••••••
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