Ian didn't fully know what was going on with his father despite the best efforts of Virginia staffers keeping him up to date. Your mind doesn't want to accept that reality." "Well, it's not much fun to have them roll you right through the door and have three doctors and five techs hook you to a machine and stab you with their needles. "You always complain about having to wait two hours in the emergency room," said Mark, who added doctors still aren't sure what is causing his issues. If he converted, it would cut BYU's lead to a single score and offer hope for a season-altering comeback for Virginia.Īt the same time, Mark, who passed a stress test earlier this year, was in surgery to clean two stents from the first heart attack. I had a job to do."Īt the beginning of the fourth quarter, Ian took aim at a 46-yard field goal. "So, I told myself I needed to be there and stay focused. "My dad and mother both said I need to be with the team, needed to be there for them and perform. This time it came during the middle of a pivotal game, and the Cavaliers led 16-13 at halftime on the strength of Frye's accuracy. Ian had to carry Mark 300 yards to the car and then drive an hour down Virginia's second-tallest mountain. That came in 2013 near the peak of Whitetop Mountain the day before fall camp began at Virginia. "He looked the same way when he had his first heart attack." My mom mentioned he was having heart pains, and I had an off feeling something was wrong when I saw him," Ian said. Now this was the man ushering him back to the field to be with his teammates.
("Don't remember them being great help," Mark said.) And this was the man who splits time on his smart phone watching kicking highlights and offering advice and support to Ian. This was the man who, when he realized how strong his 150-pound, mohawked teenage son's leg was, ordered instructional videos on technique. For Ian, this was the man who suggested place-kicking to Ian as a means to ease his transition to public school. Emergency workers assured the family Mark would survive, but human nature and fear played devil's advocate.
"He was bummed," Ian said Tuesday by telephone.Īs Ian walked off the field, he saw his dad, still conscious, collapsed on the ground as paramedics attended him. Mark would miss Ian kick for the first time in his life. He had never needed to take one before, and the pain intensified, forcing him to hastily leave his seat and seek paramedics.ĭana sprinted from the bleachers toward the field where Ian was walking off. Doctors took Mark, who had his first heart attack 14 months ago, off a post-attack blood thinner just recently, but he took a doctor-prescribed nitrate at the game to treat his angina. Squared away in the corner of the stadium's upper bowl directly in the sun, he wondered if it was simply the elements. As Ian, already 2-for-2 kicking, lined up for a field goal to end the second quarter, Mark began feeling pain in his chest. 20, a day that began blissfully for the Fryes. The timing could not have been worse the afternoon of Sept. "So, I didn't think it was necessary for him to be there if I was going to die." We know how we feel about each other," Mark said. "There's nothing unsaid between me and my son. There was no need for closure, because Mark and Ian have had it all their lives. Anything Ian would hear from his dad would be something he has already heard and probably more than once. Courtesy of Mark Fryeīut Ian didn't need to be there with his dad at halftime, Mark felt. 20 when Mark suffered a heart attack while sitting in the stands at BYU. "It's not that I need to be there," Mark said by telephone Tuesday, "it's I enjoy being there." Mark Frye had never missed a kick of Ian's - until Sept. So when Ian, the place-kicker for Virginia, connected on three first-half field goals at BYU - a quarter-tank short of 2,000 miles from home - Mark and wife Dana were in the stadium. His son Ian's football games are not always all that close to their Bristol, Virginia, home, but Mark hadn't missed a single kick. Mark Frye makes sure his rental cars come with unlimited miles.
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