x
Breaking News
More () »

Louisville's wide receivers part of special football fraternity

The team has embraced a term used by Hall of Famers, All-Americans and Super Bowl champions

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Words have whatever power you place on them and here at Louisville, the wide receivers are proud to be “freaks.”

It’s an acronym for “Fresh Recievers Exciting All Krowds Smoothly.”

“It’s not necessarily spelled correctly, it’s probably my poor education background. Krowd is spelled with a K – we just kinda made it work,” Gunter Brewer, a receivers coach said.

Brewer has taken the “FREAKS” moniker with him each place he’s coached but it all started with a legend.

“It started with a guy named Randy Moss. He actually had freak tattooed on his arm and it spun off from there and it became the freak show. Everything that became with freak we just tagged with it," Brewer said.

Credit: WHAS-TV
Receivers coach Gunter Brewer

The term has lasted more than 20 years, and, in that time, the FREAK fraternity has amassed quite the roster: All-Americans, Hall of Famers and Super Bowl champions.

RELATED: Football Cards set at safety

"It means tradition first of all I feel like. Coach Brew had that at Marshall with Randy Moss. He had it at Oklahoma State with Justin Blackmon and Dez Bryant," Dez Fitzpatrick said.

Brewer added, "You want to play within a team, but you want to take pride within your own unit. That's something they've done and to have that symbol and 'FREAK Pride' is kinda neat."

That’s exactly what being part of that special fraternity has given the wide receivers each day at practice – pride, an edge.

It’s something the coaching staff at UofL wants its players to feel when they walk through the tunnel at Cardinal Stadium on Labor Day to face Notre Dame.

Along with having pride in the team and school, they want the team to have pride in themselves.

"You know sometimes when you're tired and you walk into the room and you see those names on the board, it's like okay: now I remember, now I know what I'm working for," Fitzpatrick said.

Credit: WHAS-TV
Dez Fitzpatrick, University of Louisville football

Brewer said, "When we walk off the field, we are going to be proud of the product we put out there, because we are a family. We are going to fight hard for each other, and we are going to have freak pride."

►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple or Android users. 

Have a news tip? Email assign@whas11.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed. 

Before You Leave, Check This Out