Theres no place like home for Dillard High School alum, Eddie Frasier.

Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Frasier absolutely loves Dillard High School Panthers.

The first-year head football coach came home to the Panthers and he brought success with him.

At 34 years old, Frasier led the Panthers football team to an undefeated (10-0) regular season, finishing an impressive (12-1) overall.

Some critics say that the strength of the schedule was his best friend, but at the end of the day, you still have to play the game.

And the Panthers havent seen this kind of success in 30 years.

This year alone, Frasier added these accolades to his resume: Broward County Coach of the Year; 6A-8A Head Football Coach of the Year (which he humbly shares with his coaching staff); Broward County Team of the Year and All County nods for some of his athletes.

His winning ways did not go unnoticed by his peers.

Coach Frasier was also one of 32 head coaching candidates nominated by their respective local NLF teams for the Don Shula NFL High School Coach of the Year Award. Shula is the winningest coach in NFL history and the only coach to record a perfect season including winning the Super Bowl.

Frasier represented the Miami Dolphins as one of the best to do it on the high school level.

Though he did not win this one, the criteria to be considered is an honor and makes one proud to know that this is what peers think about you.

Character, leadership, integrity, dedication to the community, commitment to player health and safety and on-field success are all good management traits.

Young, Black, talented, respected and successful coach had a Cinderella season for his first year out.

Frasier is one of the rare few that came back to give back.

Seems as though coach Fraser had a date with fate.

He went away to school and he came back in 2008 and started laying the groundwork to land his dream job of one day coaching at the school where he left his heart.

Once he graduated from college, he came back to Fort Lauderdale and started coaching at Lauderdale Lakes Vikings, one of youth programs at which he played. Some of his old youth coaches, who he says made an impact on his life, let him come back and start coaching.

He went from being an assistant coach at Lakes to being a head coach there. He won a state championship for the youth level at Lauderdale Lakes.

Success breeds more opportunities and he started to get a lot of offers to come to high school programs because of his connection with the youth league kids.

But he says he didnt want to go anywhere but his alma mater Dillard.

I got the opportunity in 2013. I coached the middle school flag football team at Dillard (6-12 grades) winning two county championships, said Frasier. And a lot of the guys now are the guys I coached in middle school. From there, he was promoted to a JV coaching spot and won 13 straight games.

After paying some dues and having success, Feb. 1, 2019 is a day coach Frasier will fondly remember as the day he was promoted to the position of head football coach of the Dillard High School football team.

Live for Dillard is the motto that he guides his team by. He says Dillard is a lifestyle.

That lifestyle he wants to introduce his team to express is pride in being a Dillard Panther.

I am very committed to making sure that Dillard football is back where it needs to be, coach Frasier told The Miami Times.

Its always nice to see a hometown boy come back and make difference in the community from which he hailed.

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Dillard alum Eddie Frasier: The head coach who came back to give back - The Miami Times