Early Years As Player and Coach
Born and raised in Nutley, New Jersey, Fraser was a three-sport letterman at Nutley High School where he graduated in 1953. After graduation, he played baseball for Florida State University from 1954 to 1956 as a relief pitcher. After that he was in the Army for some years, stationed in Germany and the Netherlands. He became manager of the national team of Germany and after the 1958 European championship, he managed the Netherlands until 1963. In 1963, Fraser took a head coaching job with the University of Miami, a school which did not offer its baseball players a scholarship. Even though the school did not begin to offer scholarships until 1973, Fraser built a respectable program through hard work and endless promotions. Some of the people Fraser brought in to bring publicity to the program were Major League Baseball Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Stan Musial, as well as announcer Joe Garagiola. In 1974, Miami was runner-up to the University of Southern California, a perennial college baseball powerhouse. The previous year, Miami started a record streak of consecutive postseason appearances in college baseball, a record which as of the 2012 season is still being added to. Also in 1973, Mark Light Stadium was built in large part to efforts by Fraser to build a privately funded stadium.
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