Globe-Trotter -- Spurned In '85, Ex-UW Assistant Has Hit The Road

Mike Frink has coached or taught basketball in eight countries on three continents since 1986. But he would have much preferred to have gone no further than Seattle.

The latest opportunity for the globe-trotting Frink, a former University of Washington assistant under Marv Harshman, is a likely trip to the Olympic Games in Barcelona. He was asked to assist the Brazilian National Team in its Olympic pursuit at the Tournament of the Americas in Portland. Team USA should win, while Brazil, one of the world's best amateur teams, should finish second.

Life on the road, life among different cultures and dialects has been Frink's experience since his abrupt departure from Washington in 1985. He coached two teams in the World Basketball League - Vancouver and Saskatchewan. He has conducted clinics in France, Germany, England, Belgium, Spain and Italy.

In 1990, he became head coach for the Belo Horizonte (Beautiful Horizon) team in Brazil, which opened up the door to his Olympic opportunity.

"If I'm not in a rental car, an airport, a hotel or gymnasium, I'm lost. I'm supposed to be in one of those four places at all times," he said.

"It wears on you. It cost me my marriage," said Frink, whose former wife and 14-year-old son live in Bellevue.

Frink, 48, thought this area would be his home well into the 1990s. He was the top assistant to Harshman for five seasons (1981-85). He had paid his dues as a high-school coach for six years, compiling a 151-22 record at Wheat Ridge High in Colorado. He was an assistant for three years at Hawaii and four at Arizona before coming to the UW.

Basketball Weekly selected him as one of the top 15 assistants in the country in 1984. "Every one of those guys went on to a head-coaching position. Bob Hill is now with the Indiana Pacers, Leonard Hamilton at Miami, Tom Asbury at Pepperdine, Pete Gillen is at Xavier. Everyone made it."

Everyone except Mike Frink. When Harshman stepped down, Athletic Director Mike Lude wanted "a name coach" to replace him. Frink's name was dismissed.

"My response to him was, `Mike, were you always an athletic director, or did someone give you a chance to prove yourself?' "

Frink doesn't know if that was the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, but Lude held true to his word. His "name" coach was Andy Russo, whose Karl Malone-led Louisiana Tech team had just gone 29-2 and reached the NCAA Sweet 16.

"But we (UW) had just been to the Sweet 16, too. I was very disappointed," Frink said. "I had paid my dues, but neither me nor (assistant) Bob Johnson were given the kind of consideration to move on in our profession. It was more or less a dead end for us."

That's also where the UW program headed under Russo. His four-year stint was a steady decline into the Pac-10 basement. He recruited poorly, especially in Washington, and could not sustain success, even with All-Pac-10 center Christian Welp, who was originally recruited by Frink, for two seasons.

"He (Welp) could be a force in the NBA today if Marv Harshman (and Frink) had coached him for his final two years," Frink said. "But he got into motorcycles, snakes, scuba diving and everything else."

Recruiting had been Frink's forte. At Arizona, he lured Leon Woods; Frank Smith Jr., runner-up to Indiana's Mr. Basketball; David Mosebar; Russell Brown; and Joe Nehls. He and Bob Johnson had outstanding rapport with Washington's high-school coaches, a quality undervalued by Lude. That pipeline dried up under Russo. His successor, Lynn Nance, has had only mild success restoring it.

"Robert and I got into the high schools in the state, and not when they just had players," Frink said. "We made sure we communicated with them."

After his firing, Frink sold cars for a while, then spent a season scouting for the San Antonio Spurs before returning to coaching. When the Brazilian offer came, he said he'd give it six months. "But once I bite my teeth into something, I see through and build on it. That really was my frustration as a college assistant."

Frink is considering a five-year contract offer from Belo Horizonte and said will probably "ride this horse for as far and as hard as I can." Someday, perhaps, he'd like to return to his passion of American college basketball, "but it's been seven years now. I don't know if it will ever happen or I'll get close again."