By Richard Retyi, U-M Athletic Media Relations

Football Players Visit Mott Children's Hospital: Video

Listed as a 6-4, 302-pound senior offensive lineman in the Florida State football media guide, Wolverine offensive line coach Greg Frey remains an imposing figure today. He is one of the biggest members of the staff and coaches some of the biggest and baddest men on campus, instilling in them the hunger to get to a block and finish strong. He can be intimidating and a little gruff, but appearances are sometimes deceiving when dealing with offensive linemen. With a chess champion (David Moosman) and a master mechanic (Rocko Khoury) among his charges, is it any surprise that Frey is as multidimensional as his athletes

Like the rest of the coaches on staff, Frey doesn't have a lot of free time. First, there is coaching football. Second, there is meeting with his players off the field, keeping up with their academic progress and taking an active interest in their lives. There are his weekly trips to the Mott Children's Hospital and his other community service endeavors. He is also a member of the Detroit Institute of Art s and likes to get out and experience new things. Finally, if time permits, he'll get on the sticks and unwind with some video games. He beat Godfather 2 in 16 hours. All in a week's work with one of the most interesting coaches on campus.

Greg Frey was born in Smithtown, N.Y., on the North shore of Long Island and moved to Clearwater, Fla., when he was four. A big baseball fan, Frey rooted for the Mets, whose spring training was held in St. Petersburg but pledged his allegiance to the Tampa Bay Rays once the franchise began play in 1998. He played high school football at Clearwater High and earned a scholarship to Florida State where he was a part of four Atlantic Coach Conference championship teams and won a national title with the Seminoles in 1992. But athletics is just one side of Greg Frey.



"Football is a game," Frey says, leaning back in the chair in his office with the muffled sounds of construction on the Wolverines' new indoor practice facility behind him. "It's no different now than when you played in the backyard. What makes football great is that it's a game. A nine year old doesn't understand something like, 'That guy missed an assignment on a zone block', he's just watching the game and having fun."

Frey interacts with a lot more nine year olds than the average coach. He is very active in the community, specifically with the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, which he visits weekly with his players. Frey's call to community service started much earlier than Ann Arbor and he says that the infrastructure in place at the University of Michigan makes it easy for him and his players to get involved in the community.

"This is part of what makes Michigan special," says Frey. "One of the things I love about coaching for Rich (Rodriguez) is that, while football is important, there is also another life besides that. He provides an opportunity, which not all coaches do."

Frey and many of his players visit the children's hospital every Thursday during the season, spending time with the patients and their families.

"I enjoy spending time with the kids," says Frey, who is also a proud uncle to nine nieces and nephews (Brittany, Alyssa, Karina, Daria, Christopher, Michael, Austin, Connor and Hunter). "You get all types of kids -- some are afraid of you and the football players and some are really excited to see you."

The visits aren't just for the children, as Frey can attest. He and his players gain clarity and perspective in these weekly visits, reaffirming that while football is a game, their impact on the community far exceeds Michigan Stadium.

"If you're sitting with a child who is battling a deadly disease or even just nursing a broken arm, you're giving your time to them, but they're also giving their time to you," says Frey. "Sometimes our players can lose track of what it's like to be a kid. I think the children bring that perspective to the players and it takes some of the pressure away from our guys. They are elite athletes and they want to win and do well, but it's still a game and it's meant to be fun."

When not coaching or volunteering his time, Frey's guilty pleasure is video games.

"I grew up in the video game age," says Frey. "My first system was an Intellivision back in the day. I remember I was seven or eight years old and I had the flu. I was helping my parents set up for my sister's birthday party and I fell off the couch and hit my chin on the coffee table. So there I was, with stitches in my chin and battling the flu. We went to Sears to get something and my parents must have seen me staring at an Intellivision, which I had played the heck out of at my uncle's place in California. Two days later they bought it for me. My first game was Astrosmash."

Frey upgraded to the Atari and then made the jump to personal computers with the Commodore 64.

"For Thanksgiving when I was 10 years old, our family went back to where I grew up in Smithtown, N.Y., and we visited some family friends, the Thompsons and my friend Michelle" says Frey. "They had just purchased a Commodore 64 and we played with it the whole time, so I asked for it for Christmas. We had five kids in the family, so my parents couldn't just buy an expensive video game system, but I worked little league and earned the money and I finally got one when I was 11. It served a second purpose because my brother could use the word processor function for law school, so as soon as my parents figured that out that we could use it for school, we were in trouble."

In college, Frey honed his skills on his roommate's IBM, playing Joe Montana Football, and in his third year of college Frey bought his own IBM 386. He continued to get hooked on personal computers like the Pentium, while also honing his skills on the Sega Genesis, Playstation, Xbox and then Playstation 2 and finally Xbox360 and the Nintendo Wii.

"My nephews are little video game players too," says Frey. "They come and visit and play the Wii. Austin, Hunter and Connor will call me while they're playing Lego Star Wars and say, 'Uncle Greg, we beat the Sith!' It's a fun release and though I don't have nearly as much time to play as I once did, I really enjoy it."

Video games also serve to connect Frey to his younger, more technologically savvy players. When Frey invites players to his home, video games tend to be a popular distraction.

"David Molk, Tim McAvoy and Perry Dorrestein spent three hours on the Wii one time and I think Molk still holds the record for the slalom in Winter Olympics," says Frey. "Dan O'Neill is huge on Call of Duty and a lot of the guys are into video games. We'll talk about some of the new games and they'll make recommendations and I might be six months late on getting a game, but on a random Saturday in the offseason, maybe I'll pop in a game and play for a while."

Frey segues to talking about last summer's Ann Arbor Art Fair, his membership to the Detroit Institute of Arts and a particularly talented artist he met at C.S. Mott. Frey points to a drawing tacked up on the wall in his office displaying a formidable "Ultimate Warrior" with a speech bubble circling a Guns 'n Roses lyric.

"A great little artist at Mott showed David Moosman and me a whole book full of drawings like that," Frey says, pointing to "The Warrior". "I grew up near Tampa, where a lot of famous wrestlers lived, and he knew I was a fan, so one day Moose brought me that drawing and told me the young man wanted me to have it."

"Last year, the kids were just as excited to see the players as they had been in the past," says Frey.

He leans back and a shy grin crosses his face.

"Hopefully, we'll bring a better season to them this year."