Gleaning A Woman’s Perspective

Dana Froud: Contributions On The Home Front

Editor’s Note — This is a behind the scenes look from the perspective of local coaches’ wives as part of a Mother’s Day tribute series. PRAIRIE GROVE — Dana Froud is a former girls basketball coach married to a very successful one in Kevin Froud, head coach of the Prairie Grove Lady Tigers.

“A basketball coach is like any other job, the good ones are going to put more time into it,” Froud said.

“I remember doing this with him. When the sixth-grade pee wee team is playing somewhere, he’ll want to go watch them,” Froud said, of her husband’s profound dedication to bringing and maintaining a standard of excellence in the Prairie Grove program.

“We watched Justyne Huber, who will be a senior at Prairie Grove this fall, in the pee wee finals in a tournament down at West Fork. That’s the type of coach he is,” Froud said.

Even with all the success achieved on the court, there are occasional blind alleyways among the world of sports.

After coming from behind in the fourth quarter to defeat Farmington 48-44 in overtime at the 4A North Regional tournament held at Ozark, Froud described the excitement Prairie Grove fans felt when Michelle Lumsargis’s desperation 3-pointer went in to tie the game and force overtime.

“I knew that shot was off, yet it went in off the backboard,” Froud said, adding, “We got up the next morning wanting to read what the papers said about that game and there was nothing.”

“The Regional finals was the best game of the year in the whole state and it wasn’t even in the paper the next day,” Froud said.

The top-ranked Lady Tigers would sustain a bitter seasonending 68-60 loss to Pulaski Academy in their first game of the state tournament the following week.

Editor’s Note — The Enterprise-leader covered the 4A North Regional championship game and the complaint was directed towards other local media.

Froud thinks her household may have an advantage over other couples because of her understanding of the game as a former coach.

“I’ve been there, I get it, I’m not uninformed,” Froud said.

“I know the perspective of x’s and o’s and I know the perspective of a girl and I know the way they think. He doesn’t,” Froud said, explaining she gives advice from the vantage point of knowing why a player may have done something.

“I think in girls basketball, every male coach should have a female assistant,” Froud said, adding she thinks it’s harder for husbands who have coaches for wives because of the nurturing a mother instinctively provides her children as the primary caretaker.

Froud said Prairie Grove assistant girls basketball coach Shelley Dougan provides an invaluable resource to the team and the girls may be likely to go to her first with any off-the-court issues because she is a woman and understands where they are coming from.

For the high standards Kevin has set for himself and the Prairie Grove girls basketball program, Froud has some of her own.

“I expect Kevin to be a man of God first and to put our family second so that we are a priority,” Froud said, adding, “What I like to see is that he works hard, is dedicated to his work, takes pride in his work and tries to be an example to his players.”

In the evaluation which matters the most, Froud is pleased with her husband because “He does all that.”