Although she currently coaches close to where she grew up,
Robyn Fralick continues to hold Ashland University, and the city of Ashland, Ohio, in great fondness.
Fralick will be inducted into the 2024 class of the Ashland University Athletics Hall of Fame at the Ashland University Hall of Fame Induction and Student-Athlete of the Year recognition, Oct. 5 at 9:30 a.m. at the John C. Myers Convocation Center. And when that happens, she will return to a campus and a town which has informed much of her current life.
"The time at Ashland was so transformative for me," Fralick said. "It's where I met Tim (her husband), it's where we were married, it's where we had our first house, our kids, our first head coaching jobs.
"Mostly, just really grateful. So many really amazing things happened for my family there."
Fralick was wildly successful in 10 seasons with Ashland women's basketball – seven as an assistant and three as a head coach. She was an assistant for the Eagles' first national championship in 2012-13, and their first national runner-up finish in 2011-12, then became the program's head coach following fellow Ashland Hall of Famer
Sue Ramsey's retirement.
"I had been an assistant coach at Toledo, and my head coach had retired," Fralick recalled about how she ended up as an Eagle. "I needed a job, and Mark Ehlen and Sue were good friends, so that was the connection. I had never been to Ashland, I didn't really know where it was.
"Coincidentally, Tim was the men's assistant. He was on my interview, too. He was not the reason I chose to come to Ashland. Fate would have it that it all worked out very well. I just remember being really drawn to coach Ramsey, and thinking that it was a really good opportunity to work for a really good person."
In three seasons guiding Ashland, Fralick finished with an unheard-of record of 104-3 (.972), the program's second national title and its second national runner-up finish. The Eagles were 37-0 in 2016-17, the first 37-0 team in NCAA Division II women's basketball history, and she led the team to a D-II women's basketball-record 73-game winning streak.
"Very few coaches like coach Ramsey get to leave on their own terms at the own time in their own way," Fralick said. "Just grateful to have a leader and a boss and a mentor like coach Ramsey."
During the Eagles' first title run in 2013, Fralick was pregnant with her first child, Will.
"I think I was so focused on preparation for the team," she recalled. "It was such an amazing opportunity to be back there. I remember after we won it, I felt elated and exhausted."
As an AU head coach, Fralick guided her first team to the second round of the NCAA Division II postseason, her second team to a national championship, and her third team to the cusp of another national title.
"I was so fortunate to take over as the head coach with a really good team returning," she said. "I don't know if I could have foreseen what was going to happen, but I felt really confident about the players we had in our program."
The 2016-17 AU team most likely is the best NCAA Division II women's basketball squad in history.
"It was bittersweet, because I remember waking up the next morning just feeling sad that that particular team, we weren't going to have another practice together," Fralick said. "Everybody played their role, whatever that looked like."
The 73-game win streak ended in the 2018 national title game.
"It was disappointing, because I felt we were good enough to win that game," recalled Fralick. "But I don't feel like there was one particular reason. We had a bad night. We chose a bad night to have a bad night, and that happens.
"That particular team scored the most points (3,644) in the history of women's basketball in a season."
After a stint with AU in which she was a two-time Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) national Coach of the Year and three-time Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, Fralick spent five seasons as head coach at NCAA Division I Bowling Green (88-73, three postseason appearances, 2021 Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year), and just finished her first season leading D-I Michigan State, finishing 22-9 and reaching the NCAA Tournament.
"I've learned a lot," Fralick said. "It's pretty unique to start your head-coaching career 104-3, so I think along the way, you learn a lot. You learn a lot about who you are and how to coach. The margin of the game is actually really small.
"We loved BG. We felt really invested in that community."
Originally from Okemos, Mich., Fralick now coaches less than 10 minutes away in East Lansing.
"It feels really surreal," she admitted. "At games, there's so many just wonderful people I know, from family and friends and old teammates and old coaches. To be able to share this journey with so many people I know well, grew up with and love, it's been really special.
"Very rarely in coaching do you get to be really close to your family and a job that you love."
Robyn and Tim Fralick have two children, Will (who was a media darling at press conferences during the 2016-17 title run) and Clara.
"Will was just a tiny baby in the Ashland gym, and Clara was a baby at the national championship game. She was born that September. They're great," Fralick said. "What a joy it's been now to be a sports parent. It's been really fun now to watch my own kids sort of journey through their careers.
"And then Tim's gotten really involved in youth coaching. He's kind of found his niche."
Fralick will go into the Ashland Hall of Fame with one of her pupils,
Kari Pickens – the current Eagle head women's basketball coach.
"The only reason I am in the class is because of her," quipped Fralick. "I'm like, 'Kari, every team that you've been on as a coach or as a player has done really well.' A lot of those successful years, she was right in the middle of it."
As for the morning of Oct. 5 – induction Saturday – Fralick said, "I think it will be emotional. It's just such a special place to us. We still feel so connected to the community and to the people. I'll feel really grateful. We absolutely loved our time there."
