Photo by Laurie Shaul
“I STARTED WATCHING MY HEAD COACH IN THE LOCKER ROOM AND AT PRACTICE A LOT AND I REALIZED I COULD COACH AT THE COLLEGIATE LEVEL”
TOWNE INTERVIEW
Brenda Frese
Maryland Terrapins Women’s Basketball Coach
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By Tom Worgo
or Brenda Frese, a severe foot injury proved to be the path to a college coaching career. Frese underwent four surgeries while playing for the University of Arizona, where she competed for three seasons. “I started watching my head coach in the locker room and at practice a lot and I realized I could coach at the collegiate level,” she says.
What’s Up? West County | March/April 2021 | whatsupmag.com
And what a college coach she’s been for the University of Maryland women’s team for 19 seasons. The Terps consistently rank among the nation’s top-25 programs, have won 10 conference titles, appeared in three final fours, and, most importantly, won a national championship in 2006 when Frese was 35 years old. Fifteen years later, Frese has amassed a whopping 543 wins across 22 seasons at Maryland, Ball State, and Minnesota. She’s faced challenges off the court, too, including her son Tyler’s bout with Leukemia. We talked to Frese about her success, national championship, how she wins recruits over, and her son Tyler. What’s the most important nugget of wisdom you impart to your players? We are fortunate that we recruit high-level players. It’s understanding their
goals. A lot of the players that come here want to play at the professional level. We hold them to that standard and show them that they can achieve bigger things than they ever realized. You take them through the course of their careers to allow those dreams to come true. Is the fact that you have more than 40 players that earned All-Academic conference honors something fans may not realize? Yeah. Absolutely. Players that come here are really driven on the academic end. We’ve had three players that recently went on to medical school. We have another that is a doctor. Can you take me back to when you won the national championship? What was that feeling like? It was pretty surreal. We were the one team no one was picking of the four. At that time, we were fearless and didn’t know any better or how hard it was to get to a Final Four let alone win a national championship. It was just some incredible memories and everybody lining together up to accomplish that goal. What does it take to develop and run a consistent Top 25 program? It’s the top-down approach between your players and staff understanding what’s important in your program. When you attract great coaches, and support them, they understand your philosophy. For our players as well, they get taught from the top down: who we are, what’s important to us, and the level of discipline it requires to be
