Nice article on Frozena

[Sir Lawrence]

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20090208/APC0201/902080541/1009/APC02

You expect a swagger, a bravado, a "Check me out!" when you catch up with St. Mary Central graduate Robert Frozena, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound sophomore walk-on guard for Marquette and owner of a courtside seat that would make the most ardent hoops junkie percolate with excitement.
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After all, how many folks do you know who can boast they get to pick-and-pop with one of the top teams in the land, an experienced bunch that boasts a glittering 20-3 overall record, a 9-1 mark in the beastly Big East and has some MU backers harkening back to the magic of those Al McGuire years and particularly that brilliant 1976-77 season, when the program seized its lone NCAA title?

But instead, you get this:

"I'm no Wes Matthews or Dominic James or Jerel McNeal, but if I can work hard and make them better, then I'm doing my part for the team," Robert said when reached on his cell phone, referring to Marquette's talented triumvirate of senior guards and an unlikely set of teammates. "All that hard work paid off, but at the same time, I'm never satisfied.

"I still try to work hard every day, and I'm trying to make all of these guys better the best way I can. I'm not trying to take anything for granted. You never know what could happen. Life's full of surprises."

He would know.

A former three-sport standout at St. Mary Central, the 20-year-old is a walking billboard for the old adage that suggests luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Parlaying a cumulative 3.99 grade point average — "I got a B in physics my senior year," he said with a laugh — into a full academic scholarship to attend MU, all the kid has done since is secure a roster spot with a team that has designs on a Final Four march.

"He's the absolute best teammate that puts on a Marquette uniform," Golden Eagles first-year coach Buzz Williams said. "He'll have a place here as long as he wants to be here."

That place is as a role player and nothing more. But it's a gig Robert has accepted, a niche he fully embraces.

"Inside, I've always felt like, 'Hey, I knew you could do it,' " Frozena said. "To say I'm proud would be an understatement. It's a dream come true, that's for sure."

True, he's only been on the floor a team-low 15 minutes this season, his only two points coming on a pair of free throws he converted in an 81-67 stomping of Central Michigan on Dec. 2 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

And he has appeared in just 15 games over these past two seasons, attempting three career shots and scoring a total of five points.

But it's his dedication at excelling in the behind-the-scenes stuff that has endeared Frozena to the Marquette family.

Like that moment last season, just a handful of practices into his Golden Eagles career, when he — like he has always done — dived after a loose ball and displayed the intensity that defined him during his prep days, whether it was on the football field, the baseball diamond or the basketball court.

"I was trying to go as hard as I could, and I remember Dominic came up to me and said, 'Way to make us better today,' " Robert recalled. "It's nice to hear."

Or those times when he'll ably take on the role of the upcoming opponent's sharpshooter during practice.

Robert Frozena, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to become Notre Dame deadeye Kyle McAlarney.

"He knows the scouting report as well as any player on the team," Williams said. "He can communicate the scouting report better than any player on our team. He wants to help. He wants to make sure he's doing everything that he can to have great emotion and passion for his teammates. They love him. He's one of us."

But how?

Frozena said a family friend helped pave the way for a tryout by getting in touch with the MU athletic department shortly after he arrived on campus his freshman year.

From there, he met former Golden Eagles coach Tom Crean — now at Indiana — at a team picnic and was told to pass along his information to a graduate assistant.

About two weeks later, Robert and four other hopefuls were on the main floor inside the Al McGuire Center, the Golden Eagles' practice facility, displaying their skill sets, playing one-on-one and being pushed to the brink of exhaustion by one of Crean's assistants.

"We were running suicides, and it was one of those situations where you may not have done something wrong, but the coach said you did something wrong just to see how you'd respond," Robert recalled of that grueling autumn Friday. "So we'd get on the line and run suicides for basically no reason. They wanted to see who would give in."

He didn't. Nor did he during another workout two days later. And in November of that season, near Thanksgiving and with Marquette down a roster spot due to injury, the phone call finally came.

On the other end was graduate assistant Julian Swartz, the former state high school player of the year and a member of the University of Wisconsin team that advanced to the Final Four in 2000. He needed Robert to get a physical and be ready to go immediately.

"As you can imagine, there were a hundred different things running through my mind," Robert said. "It was just a rush of emotion."

At the time, he was preparing to drive home so he could punch the clock as a clerk at a local grocery store, following the every-other-weekend plan he had mapped out for himself once college started.

But suddenly, his entire life changed.

"That was right before the UW-Milwaukee game," his father, John, said. "I remember him calling me at work, and he said, 'You won't believe it. I'm supposed to be suiting up for the game.' A number of circumstances all fell together at one point in time. I think we had plans for that weekend, but he said he had tickets for that game, so we dropped everything and came down to Milwaukee.

"He's always been a kid who gives 110 percent, ever since grade school. He's like the Energizer bunny. He just keeps going. So you can never put anything past him, but it was a pleasant surprise, let's put it that way."

You could say the same for this impromptu collegiate basketball career, one that has Robert knee-deep in perhaps a very special season.

Marquette's 20-2 start heading into Friday's 57-56 loss at South Florida was its best since the 1977-78 squad, when the program, still in the height of its heyday, opened with a 22-2 mark.

But then again, maybe this isn't really such a surprise after all.

"My mom (Mary) always reminds me of a story during my sophomore year in high school, when I told her, 'Mom, I'm going to play basketball for Marquette someday. I'm going to walk on,' " said Robert, an academic all-Big East selection last season. "From that point on, it was always a goal of mine, but I never kind of imagined that everything would come about as it has.

"But now that I'm here and in the moment, it's not weird at all. I'm just part of the program, trying to make all the guys better. And together, we're trying to accomplish our goals."

Together, indeed.

"He's kind of a quasi-player/graduate assistant," Williams said. "That's really what he is. We're thankful that he's here. He's a big part of what we do. He's not treated like a walk-on. He's treated the same way I treat Dominic James and Jerel McNeal.

"He's one of us, and our kids have accepted him and they love him just as much as they love one another."

[DJO's Pump Fake]

Who is Robert Frozena?

[yellow chickens]

THE GREAT WHITE HOPE

[Brewtown Andy]

Who is Robert Frozena?

Did you not bother to read?

[DomJamesToTheBasket]

He obviously loves basketball. He could parlay his walk-on time into a coaching career. That would be a realy nice story!