By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

LANDIS — The moral of this story is you never know who might be sitting in your civics class.

That’s where South Rowan head football coach Chris Walsh found a running back. His name is Bryson Frieze.

“I had him in class as a freshman, second semester, and at first I thought he was a knucklehead because he kept wanting me to watch these racing videos,” Walsh said with a laugh. “Look, I’m a football guy. I’m not much of a racing guy.”

When Walsh gave in and watched a video of Frieze flying around in his race car, clearly an athlete and getting after it with serious intensity on the Carolinas dirt track circuit, a light bulb went off and an idea formulated.

“I told him if he was crazy enough to drive around like that, he would absolutely love playing football,” Walsh said. “He was fearless. But he didn’t care anything at all about playing football. He didn’t even want to watch us play football.”

Racing runs in Frieze’s blood.  His late grandfather loved the sport. So does his father.

“When I was 13, we went to Rockwell and my dad bought a race car,” Frieze said. “We fixed it up, new chassis, new body. I’ve been driving for a while.”

Frieze won a Young Guns V8 race at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., in August 2023.

He’s usually a top-five guy when he enters. Racing is mostly in the summer, although the dirt track season runs into the early fall. Frieze competes in many events at East Lincoln Speedway in Stanley.

“On the shorter tracks, you’re doing a lot of tough driving, but on the longer tracks, it’s faster — 100 mph on the straightaways,” Frieze said.

Frieze is strong and tough. His friends at school as well as South’s coaches thought he could help the football program. Eventually their efforts got him out there.

Frieze played on the jayvee team as a sophomore in 2022. He had a lot to learn, but there’s a lot of crashing into people at running back and linebacker and South used him at those positions. He charged into some injuries with his reckless style, but he figured out that he really liked the contact and loved being part of the team.

“I started hitting the weight room pretty hard,” Frieze said. “I wanted to keep up with my teammates.”

He played mostly linebacker for the varsity Raiders as a junior, with Landon Richards putting up the best rushing numbers South had produced in a long time.

Frieze got 19 carries and produced 91 yards.

“Frieze is a tough downhill runner and we figured he’d be our main running back coming into his senior season, but then he got hurt early,” Walsh said.

Freshman back Jayden Arthur filled in and gave the Raiders some nice games in the early going.

When Frieze returned healthy for the Central Cabarrus game a month ago, it transformed South’s running game from trying to get outside to powering between the tackles. The offensive line has responded.

Frieze carried 24 times in the win against Central and 24 more times in the win against Concord the following week. The yardage wasn’t huge, but he helped South control the tempo and the clock. He got 15 carries in a loss to Robinson before enjoying a career outing last week in the 33-7 victory against East Rowan last week with 21 carries, 127 yards and three TDs.

“The East game was Senior Night, so I had to lay it all out there,” Frieze said. “I’ve gotten better as a running back. I’m a lot more patient than I used to be. I let my guys make their blocks and try to follow them.”

South often lines up in the old-school I-formation with Frieze at tailback with a punishing fullback (Conner Richards or Owen Smith) as a lead blocker for him. South has run the rock well enough over the past month that teams have to respect the ground game. That’s opened up passing lanes. Brooks Overcash has broken school records throwing to quick receivers such as Jadon Moore and Marshal Faw.

Walsh said Frieze, like Landon Richards did in 2023, has benefited from the coaching of assistant Zane Tutterow.

“Zane was a defensive lineman at South, so it might seem odd that he’s coaching our running backs, but he understands where the holes are going to be,” Walsh said. “He’s gone to every clinic, every camp, trying to learn everything he can, and he’s been able to teach Landon and now Frieze some tricks of the trade.”

The 5-foot-11, 175 pound Frieze has found there is fun to be had in football, but he’s probably going to be a lifer in racing. That’s where his heart is.

“The racing that my dad and I do, there’s not a lot of money in it, but there’s a whole lot of fun in it,” Frieze said.  “Did being a racer help me become a pretty good football player? Yeah, I think it has. When you’ve raced, there’s no fear factor on a football field.”