Frederes: TH Man Of The Year

You’d have to go back some 25 years to find the last time the same high school or college had an individual claim the Times Herald man of the Year in consecutive seasons.

And in 1961, when basketball star Tom Stith captured his second straight TH award, that marked the end of a seven-year reign of St. Bonaventure graduates who had been honored.

Now, in 1986, an Alfred University individual has captured the prize for the second year in a row.

Alfred’s men’s basketball coach Ron Frederes is the 1986 Times Herald Mike Abdo Memorial Man of the Year Award winner, following Johnny Nelson, the AU sports information director, who received the honor last tear.

Although a Man of the Year has been selected by the Times Herald Sports Department since 1955, this is only the third year the award has been presented in memory of Abdo, the longtime TH sports editor who passed away in 1983.

The following year, Bowlean Lanes proprietor Ron Threehouse began donating a plaque in Abdo’s memory.

While Nelson was chosen for more than 50 years of publicizing and promoting high school and college sports, first at newspaper and radio stations in Bradford, Pa., and Hornell and later as the Alfred University SID, Frederes’ selection was based on his basketball team’s impressive achievement in 1986.

Frederes directed the Saxons to a school best 25-3 record for the Independent College Athletic Conference title and a berth in the NCAA Division III Eastern Regional Tournament.

The NCAA appearance was the Saxons second in as many years – the only two times in more than 75 years of Alfred basketball that the team qualified for the National Tournament.

In 1985, the Saxons had been eliminated in the first round of regional play, but this past March, Alfred enjoyed perhaps the biggest victory in the school’s basketball history.

Facing Nazareth, one of only two teams that had beaten Alfred (75-74) during the regular season, the Saxons found themselves down by nine points in the second half, but rallied to nip the Rochester school, 88-86, on Mike Wing’s half-court shot at the buzzer.

Alfred then took on the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, Potsdam State, in the regional finals, with the winner advancing to the NCAA quarterfinals. It was there, however, that Alfred’s dream season came to a crushing end, as Potsdam, which two weeks later would capture the national championship, cruised past Frederes’ club, 80-51.

Now in his ninth season at Alfred, Frederes sports a fine 123-94 record (.567 pct.) in a region that, arguably, contains many of the toughest Division III teams in the country. Besides last year, Frederes also guided Alfred to a 20-win season in 1980-1981. Alfred currently is 7-2.

A Jamestown native, the 41-year-old Frederes played football, basketball and baseball in high school and at Brockport State where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1967. He late received his master’s degree from North Carolina.

Frederes was head baseball coach and a basketball assistant at Southwestern Central School, outside of Jamestown. Frederes than coached two seasons at Davidson Community College in Lexington, N.C., with his second team finished 21-8 and was ranked third nationally in points score per game.

Calling Almond home, Frederes is married and has three sons.