“Sports are just like life with the volume turned up.”
Robyn Fralick, the head coach of women’s basketball at Bowling Green State University, sits down with us in this episode of the 35,000 feet podcast going over the past season for her team, how she got into coaching basketball, some memorable travel experiences, and her advice to future collegiate athletes.
In this episode, we discuss:
How this past season went for Bowling Green State Women’s Basketball team (0:15)
How Coach Fralick got into coaching (2:50)
Robyn’s favorite travel experience (5:33)
One thing that no one knows about Robyn (8:15)
Robyn’s advice to athletes wanting to play in college (9:02)
Robyn’s next adventure (10:52)
Bowling Green State University Basketball Team’s Past Season
Morgan: Hi guys. Welcome back. It's Morgan. Today I'm sitting down with Coach Robyn from Bowling Green State. Thanks so much for joining us.
Robyn Fralick: Thanks so much for having me.
Morgan: Yes. We're so excited to hear your story and get to know you and your team better. Can you tell us a little bit about the highs and lows of your season?
Robyn Fralick: Yeah, so a little background, I was at Ashton University for 10 years and then I just finished my second year at Bowling Green and we are working hard to build the program. This year we improved, but we also had a lot of heart breakers. We lost five names in overtime. We looked at our division one games and I think we lost by an average of two points. That part was challenging, but I also was really encouraged because I know that we've gotten so much closer. I'm excited for the momentum we have and the players we have returning and the players we have coming and I like the direction of our culture and the direction of our program. Year one to year two, I saw us take a lot of steps, a lot of wins, even behind the scenes. And right now we're in really unusual time. So the athletic world is as well, but I'm really encouraged by the group of people that we are building with.
Morgan: I love that. And I love that you're talking about building because your team's only going to keep getting better and better from that hard work and effort. Is your team doing anything right now during this unique time, I guess?
Robyn Fralick: Yeah, this is a unique time so I think all of us are sort of navigating how to manage this, but right now all the kids are back there. There's still online school, so the semester is still ongoing so that's an important piece. And then our team in particular has created a lot of structure around our communication. And for me, obviously making sure that they're safe and their families are safe is priority and that these times can be fear-inducing, anxiety-inducing, so just want to make sure everybody's okay. And then we've also, I've gotten to talk to our kids a lot, FaceTime them and that's been great because I really do miss them. This is a time of the year that we're usually all together. That piece has been good, but we have. Our staff has put together some structure to how we're going to communicate during this time. And I think that as most of the world is right now, we're just sort of going as it goes and seeing how things change.
Robyn Fralick’s Start in the Coaching Field
Morgan: No, I love that. And I can tell how much you care for your team as a coach. I know you mentioned you've been coaching for 16 years. How did you get to be a coach? What's your story there?
Robyn Fralick: Well, it's kind of a, so I played at Davidson College from 2000 to 2004 and then I had a internship that summer afterwards with Octagon Marketing Company out in Colorado. And it was an unbelievable company and internship and I really loved it, but my heart was aching. I really missed basketball. It was just in my bones, my heart and soul. And one of my friends who was coaching at Appalachian State at the time, which at that time was in the same league as Davidson, I got in contact with her and they had a position open and I just, I was so excited. I knew the job I was doing I really enjoyed, but I love basketball. And I jumped in my car and drove from Colorado to North Carolina. And that was how the coaching journey began.
Morgan: Oh my goodness. Wow. That is crazy. I'm glad you did that. You chose to follow something you loved. What's one of the biggest lessons you've learned from those 16 years?
Robyn Fralick: I don't think you can assume anything going into a season. One of my favorite parts of coaching is watching teams and individuals transform. One of my mentors used to always say that sports are just like life with the volume turned up. A lot of these character development pieces are just more obvious in the athletic world. That's been my favorite part. I love seeing a team become a team. I love watching the process of a group of people go from being a group of people to being a team. And there's nothing simple about it. I think it's a daily fight for your group and it's hard. I think it's hard to do that. It's hard to get people to buy into what's best for the team. We all naturally probably have more individual thoughts. And so that's rewarding. That's been rewarding for me every season I've coached because I've seen that happen.
Morgan: Oh, it's kind of like watching a team go from a team to a team family.
Robyn Fralick: Yeah. And I always say that the word family is used, it's used a lot in the world of athletics and yet you have to be careful because that's work. When you're a part of a family, you do hard things together and you tell each other the truth and you dig into, I love to say sticky conversations and so good teams do that. Good teams have legitimate family overlap.
Coach Robyn Fralick’s Favorite Travel Memory
Morgan: What's one of your most memorable travel experiences?
Robyn Fralick: Wow, the cool thing with athletics is you get to travel a lot of places and see new cities and see. I feel really fortunate that through the game of basketball I've been able to see a lot of the world, a lot of the United States in particular, but some of my favorite travel experiences after I graduated from Davidson, that was back in 2004. My brother is two years older than me and at the time he was living in Thailand, he was spending a year there and helping with volunteer medical work. And so I actually ended up meeting him in Europe.
He finished up that time in Thailand and we met in Europe and we traveled around for a few weeks through Italy. Trying to remember. Spain, Amsterdam, London and took trains and overnight trains and stayed in hostels. And we had our Lonely Planet book and we just sort of navigated around. We didn't have a particular plan when we got there, but I loved that. That was such a different phase of my life that we're now I obviously have a lot more responsibilities to be able to do something like that. But it was a great time that I had with my brother and also that sort of freedom we had where we sort of picked where the day took us.
Morgan: Oh, that's so fun. No, I love, I feel like travels even with teams or just family and friends, traveling brings you closer to people.
Robyn Fralick: Oh yeah. A lot. There's this real glorified piece of travel because I love traveling and seeing the world and new experiences, but travel is hard. You can be in uncomfortable travel situations or I think of the overnight trains we were on and the hostels we stayed in, there's this real unglamorous piece to it, but it's such a binding piece when you do that with other people. And I think it really tests your friendship too when you travel. I think in a good way, because you get the good and the bad. People all of a sudden, I think of travel, you're tired, blood sugar levels can drop quickly, but it's such a, I agree, it's such a binding piece for people. And my brother, I think back to our time together during that and that was great. That was great.
Morgan: You guys probably grew a lot closer too. Yeah. I just, I think the world's beautiful. There's so much culture to it so much of everything and I totally agree with everything that you've said.
Some Exciting Facts About Coach Robyn Fralick
Morgan: What is one thing that no one knows about you that you could share with us?
Robyn Fralick: Nobody knows? I don't know if I have any secrets.
Morgan: I guess the general audience.
Robyn Fralick: Okay. I can think of two things. One, I was born with two different colored eyes, gray and brown but they've the colors have changed over time. Secondly, I went bungee jumping. Yeah, I loved it.
Morgan: Okay. Bungee jumping is a blast, I've actually never been, but I really want to go. That's so cool that you were born with two different eye colors.
Robyn Fralick: Yeah. It is. And I can see it more in my younger pictures, but now I think they've blended more to hazel.
Coach Robyn Fralick’s Advice to Those Who Want to Play Sports in College
Morgan: If you're an athlete wanting to play for a team or university, what would your advice be to them?
Robyn Fralick: With the world we live in now and it's so connected via the internet, my advice would be to work. There's no quick way to be good at things. There's no fast way to be noticed. I think that there's no substitute for getting better, putting in good, old fashion hard work. And if you're good, especially nowadays with the way the web works and we have access to so many things and videos and links, et cetera, that if you're good, people will take notice. The trick is you've got to be good and there's no magic wand for that.
Morgan: I love that, hard work and dedication. And that's, I'm guessing that's something you look for in an athlete when you're recruiting and things.
Robyn Fralick: Yeah. There's a certain grit that I think just goes into successful people. It's funny because I have a three year old and the other day she was in a pool and she was having a hard time pushing herself out. And I went to go help her. And she said, "No Mommy, I can do it. I've done it before." And I thought, I love that. I can do it even if it's hard or if it takes me 10 times, I can do it. And when I think of recruiting, granted she's three, but that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for somebody who isn't trying to have somebody else do it for them or speak for them or where they're willing to keep at it until they get it.
Coach Robyn Fralick’s Next Adventure
Morgan: No, I couldn't have said it better myself. That I think hard work is something that's very needed. I agree with you on that. Well, Robyn, what's your next adventure?
Robyn Fralick: Next adventure. Well, right now they're really just the home. Right now the adventure is what it looks like to be quarantine with your family, which is an adventure in itself. We are learning how to navigate all day together in a house, which has been, there's parts of that have been so awesome. So awesome. But my next adventure, if these times pass, what we like to do in the summer is go on a family trip, either we'll head down to Florida or the beach, or I don't know. We'll figure it out, but I know that we'll try to do something together as a family.
Morgan: Oh, that's so fun. I love family trips. I feel like along with that, that's when your family grows the closest. Well, and what are you most excited for about this upcoming season?
Robyn Fralick: That'll be my third season here. I'm just excited for us to evolve. I feel like we've gotten a lot of momentum. I love our people and I'm excited. I'm just excited to get us all together and to get us into being what it looks like to be a team. I think when you love the people you have, from my staff to my team, I'm excited to see us take this journey from being a group, to being a team.
Morgan: Oh, I love that. Well, I'm so excited to follow your team because I love hearing from coaches, what they're most excited for and seeing that play out and I can tell the hustle and grind that you have and the desire you have for your team. I'm excited to see where your team goes.
Robyn Fralick: Thank you.
Morgan: Yes. And thank you so much for joining us on this podcast today, Robyn.
Robyn Fralick: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.
Bowling Green State Women’s Basketball
Podcast made in partnership with Acanela Expeditions
Theme Song - I’ll Just Be Me by Gravity Castle