Published: November 15, 2008 12:15 am      

FOOTBALL: Braves’ Freije steps down

He resigns after four seasons coaching football at Maconaquah

Bob Freije has resigned as football coach of the Maconaquah Braves following a difficult season that saw Mac finish 1-9.

Freije, who is coaching wrestling this fall, recently wrapped up his fourth year at the helm of the football program.

“It was just a few things that came up, personal and different things,” Freije said.

Freije exits as coach with a lot of fond memories after coaching the Mid-Indiana Conference school.

“I was proud to have three all-state football players, I had six academic all-state players, I had one player go on to play college football at Quincy University [John Ulerick],” Freije said. He also noted pride at watching Phil Hatcher set the school’s career total tackles mark in 2006, then to see Ryan Ware equal it the following season.

“I had a great time working with the players. And the hard work of the coaches — I appreciate all the things they did.”

Maconaquah athletic director John Off said that while victories had been hard to come by for Freije, it hadn’t been because of a lack of commitment to the program.

“We really appreciated his hard work, but sometimes [hard work] does equate into wins like we want,” Off said. “[Freije] was good from a public relations standpoint and he was very visible working in the fifth, sixth and older age group programs. He also was very helpful scouring the football community for financial support for the program. Like I said, he was committed and a hard worker.”

Freije said the biggest disappointment of not staying on as football coach was that he won’t get to watch the growth of youth players after setting up a feeder program.

“The hard part is missing out seeing what those youth football players [become],” he said. “I basically designed the third, fourth and fifth grade league, which is Howard-Miami program, the feeder program. That was a great, fun thing to get started, not just for Maconaquah to be competitive, but to see the MIC grow.”

Freije is certainly not the first Maconaquah football coach to struggle finding success.

In fact, Freije is the fifth straight — including Troy Sausaman, Mark Lefebvre, Bart Curtis and Dave Coudret — to exit the program with a losing record.

The last coach to leave Maconaquah with a winning record was Mike Berry, whose Braves finished 8-3 in 1987. Berry coached just one season at Mac before moving to Michigan where he later pocketed a state title. Ironically, Sausaman too coached a state championship team at Southern Wells.

It isn’t likely Maconaquah will fill the football position soon.

“The principal, superintendent and I will meet soon and talk about the direction we want to go,” Off said. “I don’t know if we will have any internal candidates and of course we won’t know for some time whether we will have any teaching openings next school year.”

Freije will remain on staff as a middle school physical education/health teacher.

He also offered his “thanks for all the support people gave me and I appreciate everything they’ve done.”