Norris Frederick: Looking back, leaping forward

On the screen of his laptop, Norris Frederick sees his life staring back at him. He almost cannot believe it as he reads his words, glowing in a dimly lit room.

The cursor blinks slowly, losing the race with Frederick's rising heartbeat. He revisits the memories, every harrowing detail, from alcoholism to domestic abuse to murder. Anguish stirs within him. The All-American track star cannot jump over the past anymore, or outrun it. He's moody. He's captivated.

He's able to say what he couldn't for four years: I'm free.

This is more than a senior thesis. This is more than a 20-page paper for an American Ethnic Studies course. This is more than his last major project as a college student.

"No more holding back," Frederick says as he finishes writing it. "No more feeling sorry for myself."

And that is how Norris Frederick graduated. From Washington. From pain.

In June, the skinny kid with bouncy legs finished his thesis, creating the most profound bookends of any college experience. He began school with his father's jarring murder and he departed by handing over his grief.

Since graduation, Frederick has tiptoed through the real world, frightened over the future, emboldened by surviving the past. He returns to his words often, editing and expounding, aspiring to write a book someday.

His story is a comfort now, not an assignment. Read it, and you discover inspiration in every excerpt. Read it, and you discover the conflict of unconditional love. Read it, and you discover the essence of an exceptional young man who used to hide inside his talent.

On Oct. 17, 2004, at about 2:30 a.m., I received a phone call from my mom, crying worse than I have ever heard from her. She explained to me that I needed to come home and that it was a family emergency. I hung the phone up, took my roommate's car, left my dorm and went straight home. I remembered telling myself over and over, "I hope nothing has happened to my mom or my little brother. Please, God, let nothing happen to them." As I pulled up to my house, I saw that every light in the house was on. I ran inside, and noticing that the back door was open, I peeked my head out and saw my mom sitting in a chair, crying. Without any question, I just hugged her and told her everything will be OK. She then turned to me and said, "Norris, your dad was stabbed to death by his girlfriend."

They called him Big Norris, to distinguish father from son. Big Norris was a well-intentioned man until he got drunk. Then he turned mean and violent. When he drank, Darlene Shears would tell her four children they were having a "Big Norris timeout." Over time, the kids came to understand why.

"He would drink and want to fight anything," Shears said. "He only weighed 100 pounds soaking wet, and he'd fight somebody 500 pounds if he could."

Too many times, Shears was the target of Big Norris' drunken anger. The two weren't dating but they shared friendship and parenthood. On good days, it worked. On bad days, Little Norris would listen from another room while his parents argued. They would yell at each other until Big Norris made the confrontation physical. Shears would call the police, and Little Norris stared as his handcuffed father exclaimed, "See what your mom did to me!"

Big Norris called collect from jail and continued the mind game. "See what your mom did to me?"

But the family never abandoned Big Norris. They saw too much good in him. They loved him. When sober, he was charming, funny. Shears called him "Fun-loving Frederick." He'd play Scrabble with Little Norris even though he couldn't spell well. He'd play Monopoly with him or take his son fishing. And he wound up embracing the three other boys, who weren't his blood.

Then he'd pick up the bottle again.

Norris remembers being about 10 and watching his dad drink during a lightning storm. He looked at his father and said, "Honestly, just tell me the truth, I'm not going to do anything. If you had to choose between drinking and me, which one would you pick?"

Big Norris put his hand on his son's head and pushed him back. Little Norris ran upstairs. Then his father went outside, poured out his beer, walked into his son's bedroom and held him.

"Don't ask me that question again," Big Norris said, and Little Norris hugged his father, surprised by the affection.

The dichotomy of sober and drunken Big Norris remains startling. Neither his son nor Shears talk about him in an angry tone. They say he was a good man with a bad problem. And on the night he was murdered, that problem became his downfall.

Georgia Webber, Big Norris' girlfriend, stabbed him. She wound up pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Hours after the stabbing, Little Norris remembers receiving a phone call and hearing a woman exclaim, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do it! Please don't hate me!"

Then a college freshman, Little Norris hung up the phone and broke into a cold sweat. He had visions of the woman coming to the house and shooting his youngest brother, Marquel, who was 9 at the time.

Later, he returned to his dorm, distraught over the last words he spoke to his father: "If you're not going to stop drinking, then don't talk to me. It's as simple as that."

What if he had said "I love you" instead? Would his father have avoided the bottle for a night? Would he still have Fun-loving Frederick instead of a permanent Big Norris timeout?

"It took me a long time to understand my dad had lived his life," Little Norris said. "He lived it the way he wanted to live it, and now I've got to stop blaming myself because he had to deal with what he dealt with."

For someone like me, I didn't have a bright future. I never cared what was going to happen the next day. I used everything as an excuse for why my life was the way it was and that it was everyone else's fault that I was always in trouble. Athletics came into my life and saved me from making huge mistakes. It allowed me to get a free and wonderful college education and also pursue a career after I graduate.

Norris Frederick, the track star, the nine-time All-American, wanted to quit before his illustrious college career began. He told the UW track coach, Greg Metcalf, he was done.

His father was dead, and a volunteer assistant had angered Frederick by telling him to get over it and train hard. Everyone knew the horrifying story, yet no one could relate. Frederick wanted to escape.

"You can take as much time as you want off, but you are not going to quit on me," Metcalf told him. "Do you understand me?"

Frederick replied: "Well, coach ... "

"Do you understand me?" Metcalf interrupted.

That's when Frederick realized Metcalf was serious about everything he said during the recruiting process. Metcalf promised to care for Frederick like a son, a vow that sold the family on UW. Now, in the first quarter of Frederick's freshman season, the coach was proving honorable.

"I don't care if it takes you 100 years to graduate from this university," Metcalf said. "I'll be there for you."

Over time, Frederick's life stabilized. He developed into one of the best collegiate long- and high-jumpers in the nation. He helped transform Washington track and field.

But more important, he received an education that once seemed unlikely. He was an unfocused student in elementary school and required some special-education classes in high school. As a freshman at Roosevelt High School, Frederick met a teacher named Chad Barnes, who helped mold him into a determined student.

"He's always had this charm, this charisma about him, this energy that made you want to be around him," said Barnes, now the special-education department head at Roosevelt. "He works. He works harder than most. He's always wanted to do the right thing."

When he first did the wrong thing, Barnes reprimanded Frederick in front of the entire class and then called his mother. Frederick immediately respected that level of discipline.

"Coming into high school, my dreams weren't going to college, man," Frederick said. "I would show up to class without a backpack. I was looking for ways to make money, whether it was going to be easy money or whatever. Like, I'd go through every single day, watching TV, looking around, seeing people driving nice cars, living in big houses, and I'd think to myself, 'Damn, I want that. Like, by any means necessary. I want that.' I had to change the way I thought."

He changed. In the process, so did his entire family.

I honestly hate — it makes me want to curse somebody out — when people blame everything on somebody else. "Well, I can't do this because of the white man." "I can't do this because I don't have any opportunity." That pisses me off, especially if someone comes from a similar background as mine. If you're banking on that as the reason you can't progress in life, then you're a loser.

Frederick sat in silence as he pondered a question: Do you think your father's life would've been different if he had athletics to bank on?

He fidgeted for a few seconds. Then he came to a conclusion.

"I think I was the thing that he banked on," Frederick said. "And although he wasn't picture-perfect, I think I did save his life. He would always tell me, 'Be better than me.' I guess I'm living the life he never had."

Shears often tells her son he looks just like his father. Frederick smiles. Most of the time, the conversation doesn't go any deeper. It's much easier to write his feelings than openly express them.

He doesn't drink and won't allow alcohol into his house. If you bring liquor, you are asked to leave.

"Look at what alcohol has done to my family," Frederick said. "I'm not going anywhere near those demons."

And yet, with all this clarity about his past, Frederick still frets the future. Four months since graduation, he has yet to sign with an agent and become a professional athlete. He wonders if finding a normal job would be better. Right now, he lives alone in a Lake City apartment, works as a personal trainer and ponders the possibilities.

"He's scared," his mother said. "Right now, I think he's trying to find a direction, figure out what's best, what's right for him."

At the very least, he knows what's wrong for him. It's an underrated, yet valuable, lesson. He's found the words to showcase what he's learned.

"This is showing people that all it's going to take is hard work," Frederick said, tapping at his laptop. "All it's going to take is just a little bit of discipline. Or maybe you need for somebody to kick you in your ass and be like, 'Get over yourself. Quit feeling sorry for yourself.' That's all this whole story was about, me being done feeling sorry for myself. And not wanting to be my dad.

"I hope you can look at me and say, 'If he made it, I know I can make it.' I don't regret anything I've gone through. I wouldn't be the person I am today if I didn't have that stuff."

A few minutes later, he was laughing and telling jokes. Fun-loving Frederick II. The improved version.

Jerry Brewer: 206-464-2277 or jbrewer@seattletimes.com. For his Extra Points blog, visit seattletimes.com/sports