Some guys are part of Juniata history. Pat Frazier is a few different chapters of it.
Class of 1963. Four-year letter winner, three-year starter at point guard, captain for Doc Greene and Ralph Harden. Then assistant, then JV coach, then head coach from 1977 to 1981. Then the first women's basketball coach in school history, going 6-2 with a roster that produced nine medical doctors. And for the last twenty six years, the guy in the stands at every home game, because the head coach is his son-in-law.
He almost went to Mansfield. A redshirt offer and a trustee named Joe Good sent him to Huntingdon instead. He played on Doc Greene's last team, a 1-17 group where the coach told him to shoot 20 to 30 times a game and his teammates hated him for it. He started his freshman year at Scranton in the wrong locker room, opened the game with a technical for delay of game, and beat a sold-out Scranton team 89-87 while the trainer coached the second half off a clipboard because he'd lost his voice.
He played in an era with no shot clock and no three-point line, back when nearly everybody ran set plays. That sends Tom Frank, Drew "Biz" Besket and Coach Greg Curley down a rabbit hole on Bobby Knight, Pete Newell and where the motion offense actually came from.
Then the good stuff. How a one-hour meeting with the college president turned into a head coaching job. Why he once tried to talk Curley out of taking the Juniata job. What he thinks makes Greg's program different from every one before it. And his all-time starting five, which includes two guys you know and one you've probably never heard of.
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This episode is dedicated to the memory of Coach Keith Black and his wife of fifty one years, Susie.
