FEATURES
Alumnus at the Forefront:
Work Hard,
Dream Big,
Dream Crazy
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PERSPECTIVES
William Frazier ’11 is a member of the team that created Nike’s Emmy-award winning “Dream Crazy” advertising campaign narrated by Colin Kaepernick. In many ways, William’s professional path reflects the ideals of the campaign, which celebrates people who never give up on their dreams. By Lee-Anne Black, editor
William Frazier ’11 is living his dream. For the past three years, he has worked at famed Portland, Oregon-based advertising agency Weiden + Kennedy, where he spends his days (and often nights) supporting Nike’s marketing efforts. Like many dreams realized, this one came with hard work, perseverance, humility, and a willingness to take risks. After graduating from Country Day, William headed to Western Carolina University—both to play baseball and pursue a degree in entrepreneurship. As a kid who had a natural business instinct (he sold strawberries door-todoor to buy his first Game Boy, and built and sold birdhouses as a teen to make the down payment on his first car), he was drawn to WCU as one of the few schools offering a full entrepreneurial studies program. Unfortunately, after two years of Division 1 play, William suffered a baseball career-ending shoulder injury. “Although I didn’t get to play all four years, I learned how to balance an incredibly demanding schedule, along with the importance of failure in growth,” says William. Around this same time, he first learned of W+K through a friend who interned there. “When I looked up W+K, I found many ads from my childhood that had an
