‘A lot was stolen from me’

‘a lot was stolen from me’

Jerome Frazier was a big part of Minneota’s first state football team 40 years ago, but his story goes well beyond athletics; he has been tested more in his personal life than he ever was on the gridiron.

a S OLD MAN WINTER WAS RUDELY VISITING THE CITY OF MINNEOTA IN 1985, the town’s once-downtrodden yet proud high school football team found itself on the cusp of qualifying for its first-ever trip to state.

Playing in what amounted to a snow globe with winds strong enough to sway any kick or pass off course, the Vikings were taking on Becker on snowfilled K.P. Kompelien Field. As they had previously done nine times that season, the Vikings shivered their way off the field as winners, becoming what would later be known as the team that started the tradition.

Jerome Frazier, in his second year as a fullback for the Vikings, caught a touchdown pass in that game.

Days later, Vikings players and coaches would board a school bus en route to the H.H.H. Metrodome to compete on the biggest stage they had ever seen.

Frazier was not on that bus. “I made a bad choice, a bad decision, and Coach Gerhard (Meidt) said, ‘Nope.’ My bags were packed when I came home. A lot was stolen from me, and it hurt. There were a lot of decisions I made that were based out of hurt. I didn’t have family — I had someone else’s family — somebody else’s dad, somebody else’s mom.”

Frazier at the time was living in a foster home — to him, yet another temporary stop in an unwanted journey for a young man who loved nothing more