10/13/2002 - Football
Donnie Fricks: Excelling in His Role
by: Justin Kischefsky, Navy Assistant Sports Information Director
When the Navy football team sat down to vote on its team captains for the 2002 season, slotback Donnie Fricks cast his vote for who he felt was the best person to lead the team. So did his teammates, and they chose Fricks to be their offensive captain.
"Normally the captain is announced at the football banquet, but this year we waited until towards the end of spring practice," said Fricks. "I really wasn?t thinking of me being voted captain. There are a lot of guys on the team who, in my mind, are just as if not more qualified than myself to be captain. But when the votes came in they had elected me."
"We saw a downright leader in Donnie," said fellow senior Cee Harris. "Donnie is a very vocal guy who never quits at anything."
"I think despite Donnie being a bit undersized, he is really tough," said senior Brad Tepper. "We always see him working hard both on and off the field."
"Donnie is a great young man with tremendous leadership abilities, as evidenced by his being voted captain this year," said Navy assistant coach Todd Spencer who recruited Fricks to Annapolis.
The responsibility of leading his peers is not something Fricks takes lightly.
"I am very honored to be the captain of this team," said Fricks. "These are the best guys. They are always with you, like a family. If something is wrong, if one of them has a problem, I will always be there for them. And that?s not because that?s my role or it?s something I am supposed to do as captain. Its because I want to be there for them."
The road for Fricks to be named captain at the Naval Academy started in Pasadena, Texas, which is just outside of Houston. While at Sam Rayburn High School, Fricks played a number of sports in addition to football, including baseball, basketball and track. In football, he played tailback on offense and free safety on defense. He was named USA Today Honorable Mention in football as a senior, one year after being named district MVP. For college, Fricks was hoping to find a school where he could continue his football career.
"Football came a little more natural to me," remembered Fricks. "It?s more intense and fast paced. It?s just a great sport to play.
"I had a pretty good junior year in football, so coaches started to notice me more and watch me as a senior. My best year in baseball was as a senior, but I wanted to play football."
To guess Fricks would even attend the Naval Academy seemed out of the question at first.
"I honestly didn?t know anything about this place," said Fricks. "I would see the Army-Navy scores at the bottom of the screen and I would think, ?Oh, soldiers playing sailors.?"
It was late in his junior year of high school when Fricks received a call from Spencer.
"Coach Spencer came and talked with me and asked if I would consider a military academy," said Fricks. "I wanted to keep my options open so I asked him to send me some more information."
"Donnie is the type of young man who you would sit down with on a recruiting visit and have a long list of questions for you," said Spencer. "He is organized and detailed. You could tell he had a vision for his future. In that way, he is very myopic and resolute."
"Coach Spencer sold me on the idea of coming here," said Fricks. "I had some other options, but the ability to play Division I football and have a great career after I graduated, this was the best option for me."
After spending a year at the Naval Academy Prep School, Fricks knew where he stood on the Navy depth chart at the start of his plebe year.
"I went through freshman two-a-day practices and I think I was the last guy picked to continue with varsity practices," said Fricks. "I just kept working hard and I was determined to make the travel squad. I started the year on the scout team, worked my way up and by the third game I had made the travel squad."
After reaching his initial goal of traveling with the team, Fricks set a new goal of seeing some playing time, which he did first in an eight-play appearance against Rutgers.
Fricks would go on to make a pair of starts and appear in 10 games as a sophomore, then made three starts while playing in every game last year as a junior. He wasn?t carrying the ball much ?? 15 career carries ?? but he was fine with that.
"A lot of guys want to carry the ball a bunch, score a lot of touchdowns, and get their names in the paper," said Fricks. "Those things can be nice, but I really don?t like to jump in front of the camera.
"I know I am a better blocker than runner. Everybody has a role on the team and mine is to be the best blocker out there. If I get the ball, great, but we have guys in Tony Lane and Eric Roberts who can run the ball. I would rather block for them than have them block for me. My goal is to get the most knockdowns on the team."
There were many reasons for Fricks to look forward to the 2002-03 school year. He had just one more year before graduation, he had been voted captain by his teammates, and Navy had a new football coach in Paul Johnson.
"I looked at the past two senior classes," said Fricks. "Two years ago they left with one win. Last year they left without a win. I was determined we weren?t going to have a year like that. We don?t want our senior year to end with one win, two wins or even three wins. We want to be a winning team and go out and win a bowl game.
"I think we have the best coach in the nation, and he has put together a great staff. Coach Johnson knows what is going on and he is going to put us in a position to win. This year is about getting the program back to where we belong."
Fricks didn?t just think about those thoughts, he passed them on to his teammates and demonstrated the commitment he was looking for by coming back early before the start of fall camp to get into shape.
"As seniors, we knew this was our last shot," said Fricks. "You don?t realize how much you will miss something until it is gone. I don?t want to look back and think I should have worked harder.
"As captain, its kind of my job to rally and motivate the guys, telling them, ?Hey, we need to be here this summer. We have to work harder.? If we didn?t do that, then we were going to have the same feeling the last couple of senior classes had. You don?t get a second chance at a last dance, so you need to get on the horse and ride."
If this were a perfect story, Fricks would have seen his hard work on the field payoff by blocking for Navy on many touchdown drives this season. But this is not a story, this is life, where fate steps in and forces plans to go awry. In Fricks? case, fate entered his life during practice on August 12.
"I went on an ?out? route," said Fricks. "I probably should have been the blocking back on the play, but in two-a-days you do a lot of different things and fill in where needed, so I went out as a receiver. Craig (Candeto) tossed it over to me, so I jumped up and caught the ball. While I was in the air I was hit, my body turned and I came straight down on my shoulder. I knew something was wrong because I heard something snap. I told the doctors what happened and they told me my collarbone was broken into about eight pieces."
After all of the hard work and dedication Fricks spent preparing for his final season of football, no one could blame him if he became depressed. It would be only natural to feel that way, and Fricks did. Briefly.
"I was sitting on that golf cart, riding into the training room with an ice bag and my shoulder and you want to feel sorry for yourself. You feel frustrated. You think, This is my senior year, how long am I going to be out?? You want to say, ?This isn?t supposed to happen to me.? But then I thought, ?Well who IS this supposed to happen to?? So I realized it wouldn?t do me any good to feel sorry for myself. The team still needs me. If I can?t play, I can still be a part of the team. I can?t be down. I still need to be at practice. Feeling sorry myself would just be selfish."
Although he couldn?t play, Fricks made the trip to Dallas as Navy opened the season with a victory over SMU.
"It was great," said Fricks. "Many of the seniors had never experienced a win, at least a win in which they played in. Coming back into the locker room after a win is the best feeling in the world."
After watching a Navy victory, Fricks now wants to play in one. To do so, he is using that same positive attitude he had last summer to push himself back into playing shape.
"I don?t miss a practice," said Fricks. "I am limited in the things I can do, of course, but I work out everyday and am now able to wear a helmet. You need to have a positive attitude. That?s a big component in healing. If you are just standing around depressed, your body is going to feel that and you are not going to heal.
"The doctors have told me they think I will be ready to play in the Army-Navy game, but that doesn?t work for me. I can?t have just one game to play in my final season."
It is examples such as this inner drive which further explains why Fricks was elected captain by his peers.
"Maybe he underestimated himself a bit," said Harris, who has known Fricks since they were together at NAPS. "He has been everything we expected in a captain, and more. Just look at what he is doing now."
As the two of us turned our heads on the nearly deserted practice field following a long practice, we saw Fricks leading a small pack of players in wind sprints up and down the 100-yard field.
"For as much as he is around and helping us out, you would think he was still playing," Harris continued. "He is still vocal, still pushing the guys. He has not sat back and thought of himself."
"Donnie is a great student of the game who watches a lot of film to help better himself and his teammates," said Spencer. "Even though he can?t play right now, he still watches film and is able to offer suggestions on the field."
"He is like a coach on the field, especially for us ?A Backs,?" said Tepper.
The family atmosphere Fricks often mentions when discussing the football team is one of the reasons he is drawn to the Marine Corps for his service selection next spring.
"I have met a lot of great Marines while I have been here," said Fricks. "The brotherhood, the camaraderie of Marines; that?s a lot like we have here with Navy football."
It?s been a long journey for Fricks, to go from having limited knowledge of the Naval Academy to captaining the football team as a senior. It?s a journey he would readily do again.
"If I had to do it all over again, this would be my first choice. With what Navy football has given me, I wouldn?t choose any other route."
