New honor for decorated BVNW hoops guru Ed Fritz: McDonald’s All-American Game coach

Down 15 points with a trip to the Kansas Class 6A state tournament on the line, Blue Valley Northwest boys basketball coach coach Ed Fritz could only watch as his team’s postseason hopes slipped away.

The year was 2003, and his game plan had fallen flat. One of his best players was struggling to defend Shawnee Mission West’s star, the Huskies’ season was on the verge of collapse, and all the second-year coach could do was look on in despair.

That is, until the words of a snappy 17-year-old jerked him from his lamentation.

“What are you doing?!” yelled Trey Brown, one of Fritz’s players. “Put me on that guy!”

Fritz wasn’t used to being shouted at by one of his charges. But what he did next proved to be his best move of the game, and perhaps his career at the time,.

“OK. You’ve got him,” Fritz shouted back.

Brown kept the SM West standout in check the rest of the game, and the Huskies were soon headed to the first state tournament of Fritz’s tenure.

Sixteen years later, Fritz is still the head coach at Blue Valley Northwest. He’s won four state championships and has coached in seven title games. He has won more than 600 games at Blue Valley Northwest, his home following 15 years at Center High and stints at Baker University and the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

And later this month, a new honor awaits: Fritz will coach the East squad in the 2019 McDonald’s All-American Game on March 27 in Atlanta.

“You never expect those kind of things,” says Steve Harms, the former athletic director at Blue Valley Northwest who hired Fritz in 2002. At the time, Harms just wanted the Huskies to compete for league championships. Perhaps make some state tournaments.

“Now, the level he has taken it to has far exceeded all those expectations,” Harms said.

Generations of success

Wearing the basketball net around his neck, Clayton Custer ran through the crowds and cameras and men clad in suits, vaulting a set of tables before falling into the arms of a red-faced Fritz.

Loyola-Chicago teammate Ben Richardson soon followed, joining a special moment with the man who had long been their mentor and father figure.

The 11th-seeded Ramblers had just defeated No. 9 Kansas State 78-62 in the Elite Eight. Soon, all three would be headed to San Antonio for the 2018 Final Four.



“He was at every single game during the Final Four run. It was awesome having him up in the crowd,” Custer said. “To have him there made us feel comfortable while we were playing.”

Custer and Richardson played for Fritz from third grade through high school. They spent countless hours on buses together, or hooping it up at Fritz’s house with his son, Vince. One New Years Eve, the group played on the hardwood floor inside the BVNW gym as the clock struck midnight.

“I don’t know how to explain it, but we just kind of connected with each other,” Fritz said. “You don’t have to say anything about it, but you just know that they’re part of me and I’m part of them ... and it’s kind of a cool thing.”

Dan Peterson, a BVNW player during Fritz’s first two years on campus, remembers what it was like before he arrived. Classmates would spend their Friday nights watching Huskies football games, but when basketball season rolled around, the stands were something less than full.

A winning season soon changed that.

“I remember our last two games, where there were people standing along the baselines and kind of just around the court because there was no seats for them,” Peterson said. “The gyms were full and the gyms were loud and it wasn’t like that my first two years there without Coach Fritz.”

All about relationships

Peterson said Fritz earned his new players’ trust right away. Their first game with the new head coach was a 15-point come-from-behind win at Shawnee Mission East.

All these years later, Fritz retains that bond with his guys. When he learned he’d be coaching in the McDonald’s All-American Game, he immediately scanned the roster for the name of Christian Braun.

A current Blue Valley Northwest senior and Kansas pledge, Braun had been on the short list for inclusion in the game.

Fritz went down the roster a second time.

No Braun.

“That kind of really hurt me,” Fritz said. “I kind of really felt bad, and I went to him and told him before the announcement that I got it and he didn’t.”

Like those who came before him, Braun said he was just happy for his coach.

“Just seeing Coach Fritz get that recognition for being such a great person and a great coach, it means a lot to me,” Braun said. “He’s done a lot for me and a lot for my brother and a lot for my friends.”

If anyone can best sum up Fritz’s career, it might be Ed’s son, Vince, who won back-to-back state championship with Custer and Richardson in 2013 and 2014.

“I couldn’t think of a better guy that deserves it more,” the younger Fritz said. “He’s done so much for the community and the kids, and he’s always been about the right things ever since he started coaching.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2019 at 6:00 AM.