As a Gators walk-on, No. 85 Andrew Fritze was part of the 2006 UF team that won the BCS National Championship in Glendale, Ariz. (Photo: James Schwaberow/NCAA Photos)
Profiles During A Pandemic: Dr. Fritze Forced to Barn Out Back by COVID-19
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Andrew Fritze is not the kind of person to run the other way when a unique challenge appears.
All you need to know about Fritze to grasp his tenacity is that he was a 6-foot-1, 180-pound walk-on who earned two national championship rings on a pair of Florida teams that featured some of the best players in school history. Or that while his parents attended the University of Georgia, he knew Florida was the school for him.
Fritze was one of those players coaches call "program guys." Showed up on time. Made good grades. Knew his role. Did whatever the coaches asked at practice.
He can still hear former Gators coach Urban Meyer in his head. Andrew Fritze during his time with the Gators. (Photo: Jay Metz/UAA Communications)
"I think about it every day,'' said Fritze, who earned a shot with the Gators following a standout career at the private Father Lopez Catholic High in Daytona Beach. "When your number is called, what are you going to do? This is why you are in the position that you are in. When your number is called, you step up and do your job."
Most of Fritze's job with the Gators was spent on the scout team and special teams. Still, he made it into four games and learned a lot about leadership and maximizing your talent from teammate Tim Tebow and Co. during his college career from 2005-08.
No matter how tired Fritze was after practice or how early the alarm clock sounded in the darkness during two-a-days, those trials fail to match the test he faced recently due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"A lot goes through your mind when you are by yourself for two weeks,'' Fritze said. "I've never in my life sat down and thought 'poor me,' but man, when you are in your head for that long, that's hard. Probably the hardest thing that I have ever done."
For two weeks starting in late March, Fritze moved to a barn behind his family's home in the Daytona area so he could remain isolated from his wife Tara, their two young daughters, and several older relatives who often help the couple with the kids.
Now a surgeon in his hometown, Fritze was exposed to COVID-19 by a patient on March 21.
"It was quite an exposure. It was not like I had direct contact with her coughing in my face, but she was a known COVID positive patient and there was an emergency situation that required her to be in an area where I was and in a possible intubation situation. You can't have a mask on and be intubated at the same time."
The hospital's chief medical officer contacted Fritze after the incident and set in motion a difficult and immediate adjustment. First, Fritze had to make an area in the barn livable, which meant acquiring an air conditioner and other amenities quickly. Once he got settled, the mental and physical test truly started.
To compound matters, he became ill during his isolation.
"They did a pretty quick turnaround [COVID-19] test that they're re looking at with a grain of salt that was originally negative,'' he said. "However, in my quarantine, about five to six days in, I got pretty sick. I mean, really sick, to a point where I had a fever of 101.8 and chills, a little bit of nausea and fatigue, pretty much a bad flu."
As he counted the days until he could rejoin his family, Fritze took every precaution necessary to ensure he did not spread whatever he had. It was not easy. Fritze can still get emotional when discussing the ordeal.
"Looking at your family through the window" was the most difficult part, he said. He wanted to hug Tara and pick up the girls, the youngest only a few months old.
But he knew that could not happen.
Andrew Fritze and wife Tara both attended UF and grew up in the Daytona Beach area. (Photo via Daytona Beach News-Journal)
"For me not to take my exposure seriously and to be around the house and around my family would be devastating to me to get someone sick," Fritze said. "That was always on my mind. It meant more to me to protect them."
Fritze grew up dreaming of becoming a surgeon, a quest that began to turn into reality when he got accepted into UF. A year younger than Andrew, Tara also attended UF with the goal of becoming a doctor. Following their undergraduate studies, both completed their medical degrees at Florida State and eventually returned to the Daytona Beach area – Andrew and Tara have known each other since grade school – to start their careers.
Earlier this month, Fritze returned to work and is proud of the response the medical community has provided during the coronavirus pandemic.
"As far as me being a front lines person, obviously I was exposed by a COVID positive patient and I have the propensity to do that every day that I work,'' Fritze said. "However, I just want to reiterate that there's a lot of people out there who do a lot more than I do as a surgeon, aka the [Emergency Medicine] ED physicians, the people that are caring directly for the COVID patients. It's corny, but I don't know how else to say it. But quite literally, it's a team, the health-care professionals, we're all on a team right now."
A team on a mission, sort of like those Gators teams of Fritze's past.
