Megaphone Willie: Fritz's Vision is Loud and Clear

Willie Fritz can no longer yell. His voice is gruff and gravelly from years of “shouting encouragement” to his players, as he puts it. Put a stranger in a blindfold, play a recording of Fritz talking, and they could guess what he does for a living. He sounds like what he is – a football coach. 

But Fritz is easy to hear over the booming music played at college football practices. Fritz attended a Kansas City Chiefs practice back in the early 1980s and watched Frank Gansz Sr. coach special teams. Forty years later, the memorable part of that practice wasn’t any drills or fundamentals. It was how Gansz coached. Specifically, how Gansz broadcasted his “encouragement” into a microphone that was attached to speakers.