UMKC Hall of Fame Spotlight - Bill Frerking
12/11/2008 12:15:00 PM | General, Athletics
by Dan Stroud
One might think being vice president and chief sustainability officer of Georgia-Pacific L.L.C. (GP), one of the world's leading manufacturing and distribution firms with regard to lumber, gypsum, and paper would leave any person with a strong sense of entitlement.
That doesn't seem the case at all with former UMKC basketball standout Bill Frerking. A 1982-83 NAIA all-American (honorable mention) point guard, the Columbia, Mo., native said he was actually taken aback by the announcement that he had been selected as a member of the university's inaugural Hall of Fame class.
“I was surprised and clearly honored,” said Frerking. “Later, I was kind of humbled ... the fact that only eight athletes, two of which were men's basketball players were chosen ... and I was one of them. That's a pretty humbling experience.”
The two-time Academic all-American may have been surprised, but no one else should be, given his accomplishments during the tail end of UMKC's days of NAIA dominance leading up to the athletic program's jump to NCAA Division I status in 1985.
Kangaroo basketball reached the post season 10 times in 18 years as an NAIA member school. Frerking played on a pair of the playoff teams and was named to the all-District 16 first team twice.
His recognition by the NAIA all-America committee came in a year that saw UMKC miss the post season entirely. Due in large part to much of that notoriety, the Kangaroo point man actually was able to spend a period of time down under ? literally.
Frerking was one of two sophomores invited to play on a 16 member NAIA National All-Star team that spent 10 weeks in Australia in the summer of 1981. While on that trip, he had the opportunity to coach a pair of future NCAA stars, Luc Longley (who would later play for the Chicago Bulls in the NBA) and Stanford player and Australian Olympian, Andrew Vlahov.
But Frerking isn't one to dwell on such accolades. Among his most vivid memories is the first day he arrived on the UMKC campus.
“I can still remember showing up to our first conditioning practice with coach [head coach Darrell] Corwin addressing the team,” said Frerking. “I was fortunate to start the first 16 games that year as a freshman despite having to shift from high school forward to college point guard. That's not typically an easy transition to make.”
He recalled a senior teammate from that year, Tom Demaio, taking the time to show a freshman the ropes. There was also John Wayne, who Frerking said was among the best athletes he ever played with or against.
Other teammates he shared memorable times with included Jerry Becker, Mike Bellman, Vinny Gayle, Tim Stumpff, and Mark Bilger, as well as team trainer and roommate Jim Johnson.
Talk shifted from there to memories of one of the first road games he ever played at Drake against a future NBA star named Lewis Lloyd. Through the years there were games against Big Eight schools Iowa State and Nebraska, and Division I schools like University of San Diego, California ? Irvine, Murray State and Evansville that also came to mind.
In the summer, Frerking would receive phone calls from Missouri coaches to scrimmage with the team when in town for summer workouts. Those teams included legendary Mizzou performers Steve Stipanovich, and Jon Sundvold. He also played in the State Show-Me-Games after college with former Mizzou athletes Kim Anderson, Jim Kennedy, Al Eberhard, and John Brown.
He was appreciative of his university and its “serious student body that knew what they wanted and why they were there. They were professional minded students who simply wanted to get their degree and move on with their lives.”
But basketball isn't all that rests in Frerking's memory when it comes to his days as a UMKC student-athlete. He was also very appreciative of the college experience he received while in the Heartland.
“That's such an instrumental and transformative time in life,” said Frerking. “You're caught somewhere between kid and grown-up.”
He laughed as he said this, suggesting that his wife might feel at times that he's still caught in that same place.
“You have a whole host of friendships and experiences that put you on a path to make choices and decisions that will shape your future,” continued Frerking. “Trying to be a good student and how to balance your time were things I learned.
“You can't be a regular student ... many times I would find myself doing homework on Friday and Saturday night while other students were out enjoying their evenings.”
One of five kids growing up in mid-Missouri, Frerking said he came close to going to Dartmouth, an Ivy League school. But after deciding the school was not for him, he said Dr. Jerry Foote, a Dartmouth alum himself, suggested giving UMKC a try.
Frerking's two brothers stayed in the Missouri university system as well, playing football in Rolla, and taking the engineering route. A running family joke is that because Frerking “can write in sentences and went to law school [in Columbia] I'm the black sheep of the family.”
Those traits evidently served him along his career path as well. After a decade in private practice that saw him literally fall into what at that time was still the relatively unknown area of environmental law, Frerking signed on with Koch Industries in 1996.
He developed the environmental management system at the multi-billion dollar company and 12 years later, after the acquisition of GP, ultimately landed in his current position. Once again, it is a position that continues to develop under the lifelong Kangaroo's careful and considerate watch.
“My job is really more strategic than anything else; to look at the ways in which we manage our use of resources in a responsible manner and the impact those decisions have on society, the environment and profitability,” said Frerking. “Products first have to meet people's needs. Customers voluntarily choose our products over the available alternatives because they perceive them to create greater value. Profitability comes from creating that value more efficiently than your competitors.”
In addition to his work, Frerking values his family, which includes his wife, Susan, and his four children Andrew (sophomore), Katie (8th), Lauren (6th), and Grant (4th). “God has richly blessed me in life. He gave me a great childhood, great parents and great brothers and sisters. He also blessed me with a wonderful wife and four talented, loving and respectful children.”
All of his children are good students and athletes. Frerking has coached all of them in basketball and is currently coaching teams with Grant and Lauren. His oldest two children share four youth National Championships between them (two apiece) with the most recent being the 11-year old AAU championship in 2007 by Katie. This year Katie's team, the Georgia Pistols, came in second, while his youngest daughter's AAU team, also the Georgia Pistols, finished ninth at the 10-year old national tournament.
In concluding his thoughts on his upcoming induction, Frerking couldn't help but fall back on a humble reflection about where his life has taken him.
“Looking at my career to this point, including the time spent at UMKC ... I really can't take credit for any type of master plan,” he lamented. “I am just thankful that I had a great number of experiences and a great number of people that prepared me for the things that came next.”
(This is the first of a nine-part series featuring the inaugural UMKC Athletics Hall of Fame class.)