Early Life, Playing Career, and Military Service
Fittingly, Frei was born in the small Wisconsin town of Oregon. He spent his early years in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, then moved with his family to Stoughton, near Madison. He graduated from Stoughton High School in 1941, shortly before his 17th birthday. He was a classmate there of Marian Benson, whom he later married in 1945. Frei was inducted into the Stoughton Hall of Fame after his death.
Frei attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As a 18-year-old sophomore in 1942, he was a guard for the Wisconsin Badgers. The team, which starred two-time All American end Dave Schreiner and halfback Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch, finished with an 8–1–1 record, ranked third in the final AP Poll, and was named the national championship by the Helms Athletic Foundation. The Badgers beat the AP national champion, Ohio State, but lost to unheralded Iowa and tied Notre Dame.
Frei served as a pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, flying 67 reconnaissance missions in the Pacific theater for the 26th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron (26th PRS) of the Fifth Air Force's 6th Photographic Group. In the unarmed version of the P-38, he made solo flights over Japanese targets to take photographs in advance of bombing missions. Following World War II, he returned to Wisconsin, where he played football for the Badgers in 1946 and 1947. He graduated in 1948.
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Famous quotes containing the words early, playing, military and/or service:
“And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 14:25.
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—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it. The antique arm whined as he reached for another mug. It was a Russian military prosthesis, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic.”
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“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
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The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
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