The making of Zach Frazier

Ah, the start. A day before the special day when he would learn if he were a first- or second-round draft choice, his mother, Heather, recalled the beginning and how faith immediately laid out the course he would follow; a path that she and husband Ray would guide him down.

“God gave me a mission before Zach took his first breath,” she said on Wednesday. “Before that first breath, he showed me the fields Zach would walk on. He showed me a vision.”

They were tested right away for that first breath did not come easily.

“He had a little trouble breathing at first and Ray was like, ‘Heather, Heather, do your thing with Jesus. Get him to breathe.’ And I wanted to be like, ‘Ray, he’s going to be alright. You have no idea of what I have just seen.’ I couldn’t tell him, so I was like ‘Zachary, Zachary Allen,’ and started praying,” she said.

“Zachary took his first breath and my Mom was like I’m not going back into one of these rooms again and walked out. Ray was so happy, we both started crying.”---It did not take long for the Fraziers to figure out what would become the major path Zach Frazier would follow. While their stories at the moment don’t completely coincide, the point of the story is unified. They had been asked about the day they knew Zach Frazier would be an athlete.

“All I ever wanted to do was be a parent. That was my dream job and I had these two sons. Zach has been a real determined kid. He always had a goal, no matter what it was, and he always achieved what his goal was, whether it was picking up the toys in the room or if it was whatever sport he was playing,” Heather Frazier said.

“I remember when Ray put the football in his hands the first time. He was in diapers. I was doing dishes. Ray turned the football and showed him how to hold it in his hands. Then Ray showed him it was the wrong way,” she continued.

So many thoughts rushed through her mind.

“I turned around and glared at Ray, like ‘What are you doing?’” she said.

But at that moment, Zach caught her eye.

“He gave me that look. He thought it was funny and toddled off and kind of twisted the football around and went off. A few minutes later he came back and twisted the football and said “right”, then twisted it again and said “wrong.’”

Right then she knew one of the directions her son would take.

“He looked at me over doing the dishes and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ I’m not going to win this battle.’”

Ray remembers a bit differently.

“He was probably 2, 3 years old then. I think it was probably a golf ball, but he’s always had a ball of some kind in his hands from an early age.”---Mother and father took different assignments in raising Zach Frazier.

Ray was vital in his sports education. He wasn’t the push, push, push kind of father. Didn’t have to be. Zach Frazier pushed himself.

Ray had played football at Fairmont State and certainly wanted his son to follow in those football footsteps.

“I exposed it to him at an early age, but the big thing is he grew to love the game,” Ray said. “He did that on his own. I really feel he made his own decision on that. I love the game. I played it, but it’s one of those things he decided for himself.”

You ask Ray Frrazier about meaningful moments to him in Zach’s development, he mentions a number of them but atop the list was this one.

“Some moments that were neat that happened along the way ... I was coaching high school football. I did that for 11 seasons. He was just getting started playing and he came up to me and said “Dad, will you coach me?’”

“That was a big moment for me and will always stay with me. I had the good fortune to coach him all the way through middle school. Then he got to high school and had some tremendous coaches J.L. Abbott, Coach Bigelow and, of course, at WVU he’s had Coach Matt Moore.”

Heather took charge of preparing him physically, mentally and spiritually for the moment that is about to come.

“It’s one thing to have a mission from God or a calling, but it’s another thing for it to play out. To have it played out and to be here now, there aren’t any words for it. So, as a parent, you feel as if you held your breath for 22 years. That’s what it’s like,” she said.

“I’ve tried to put all the correct nutrition I could into him. When he would wake up in the morning, before he would open his eyes, I would say ‘Good morning, Zach. Good morning. Brady. How many eggs do you require today.’

“That was middle school to high school. He would tell me ‘four, no five, no four’ and he would have four. We were that in tune with his body. He liked to research eggs. He was very specific about it. Did the rest of the house eat those eggs? They did not, but his body needed those eggs.

“That may sound silly to the rest of the world, but it wasn’t silly to us because we were not planning for that one particular day, not planning for college. We planned for the day that is happening Thursday. We didn’t have a goal, we didn’t talk about it, but we always knew this day was coming ... that is the day that is here now because of what God showed me.

“That was a job, even back in middle school, that I was preparing him mentally, physically and spiritually his entire life. I didn’t have to say it to him. I didn’t put pressure on him. But as a Mom it was my job, my responsibility so that on Thursday or the next day, when they call his name, I can let him go.

“When that comes, I will know I did my job.”---But here’s the thing. These parents did not just create a football player. They created a person. You name your dream for your child and Zach Frazier checks all the boxes.

Star athlete, four-time high school wrestling champion who lost two matches in his career, academically honored student, active in the community, humble, polite.

“I think he’s had a lot of really good role models from his uncles, his grandparents, hopefully us as parents,” Ray Frazier said. “I think the biggest thing is he has always tried to think about more than just himself and helping people out.

“Simple things, we tried early in life to instill things like having manners and being respectful to people, saying thank you and saying please. That seems real simple but today that sometimes gets overlooked.

“He’s not perfect, but he has a servant’s heart. I think he really cares about people. That rings true with the way he lives his life. People see the way he plays football, but off the field he’s had the ability to be a really good person. Sometimes people don’t see how that goes together, but it does.”

Here’s a guy who spends his Saturday afternoon battling eyeball to eyeball with a 350-pound noseguard and then on Sunday shows up at WVU’s Children’s Hospital, win or lose.

“They had their share of adversity over the last four years, but I remember one really rough loss and the next day they went to Children’s Hospital, but he wanted to fulfill his obligation of going over there and after afterward he said it did him good to go help somebody and not feel sorry for himself,” Ray Frazier recalled..

“There is going to be adversity when you go play professionally, but he’ll have a really good perspective to know the sun is going to come up tomorrow. It’s more important how you react to adversity than it is in how you react to success. I think that’s something ingrained in him and will help him out.”__He already has faced adversity, a scary moment that threatened to ruin this NFL Draft Day that is coming up, when he heroically suffered a broken leg in the Baylor game making an extra effort to help wide receiver Hudson Clement get a first down, then literally crawling off the field to save having to call a timeout.

This had to be a shocking moment for parents in the stands watching what had just transpired.

“I have not lost any faith, but I did in that Baylor game.,” Heather Frazier said. “ turned around and slapped the bench ... I did. But I’ve never wavered in my faith with Jesus and I knew that Jesus had him, that he was protected. We don’t always get to know the path or get to understand the story, but I bet this will work out that there are lots of other people who will suffer broken bones and see him and think, ‘If he can do it, then I can do it.’

“If just one person saw it, then Jesus used him for that.”

“The thing about it is, he’s always leaned on his faith,” Ray Frazier said. “It was a big adversity. Things had gone really smoothly for him for most of his career, he was able to lean on that moment, trust in his faith and trust that God had a plan for him and he would be able to overcome it.

“Obviously, you didn’t know what the outcome would be at the moment, the thing I did know was whatever he was going to overcome what happened, he’d do it. I also knew that, as hard as it would have been if it worked out badly, he’d be successful in whatever he does. I really believe that.”---And finally, Zach Frazier started his own family 11 months ago when he married Stephanie Vincent.

“We love her. Oh, gosh do we love her,” Heather Frazier said. “It was the best day ever. He was very handsome. She was beautiful. She compliments him. I saw an interview where she grounds him and keeps him in check. I cried. I thought ‘Oh, my God, that is just perfect.’

“She makes his crazy sane. That’s how I like to say it. She is so perfect for him.”