Some people like to fish, hunt, play golf or read. Fred Litzenberger likes to coach basketball.
It's more than his job. For Litzenberger, it's his passion.
Now, he loves to travel, enjoys hiking and fitness training, and he'll work at hustling up a tennis match or a golf foursome. But his greatest satisfaction comes from coaching basketball.
If "Coach Litz" was a player, you'd call him a "gym rat." He's the easiest guy in Natchitoches to find -- just look in his office from shortly after dawn until David Letterman's Top 10 lists hits the air.
His hard work pays off.
Coach Litz is known throughout college basketball as one of the game's top strategists and teachers. It's a reputation he has earned in the last 12 years as a coach at the major college level.
He is the Demons' associate head coach, at title which describes the impact he will have one the program and the credentials he brings to Northwestern from his 24-year coaching career.
He is an internationally-recognized basketball expert who has authored two books and produced a pair of instructional videotapes, along with writing six articles for national coaching publications.
He has taught at clinics and in leagues in Canada, Australia and Hawaii, along wit throughout the continental United States. He has worked camps for coaches such as Bob Knight, Dick Motta and Bill Foster.
His specialty is defense. As assistant coach coordinating the defense for Boyd Grant at Fresno State and Colorado State, Litzenberger was a key element in five trips to the NCAA Tournament and two berths in the NIT.
Litz's defenses ranked among the country's top 10 eight times from 1981-90. In 1982 at Fresno State, his defense led the country.
After Grant retired at Colorado State three season ago, Litzenberger moved to Miami and helped Leonard Hamilton develop the Hurricanes into a competitive Big East Conference squad late last year.
In his four years at Colorado State, the Rams won two Western Athletic Conference championships and reached the 1986 NIT Final Four. Colorado State reached the NCAA Tournament in his last two seasons, 1989 and 1990.
At Fresno State from 1981-85, Litz helped the Bulldogs win three Pacific Coast Athletic Associations championships and trips to the NCAA Tournament in 1981, 1982 and 1984. In 1983, Fresno State won the NIT Championship. In 1982 team was ranked ninth nationally, featuring three future NBA players recruited by Litzenberger - Rod Higgins, Ron Anderson and Bernard Thompson.
He has a 10-year record of 187-46, a winning percentage of 80.3, as a head coach in college, prep and military arenas. As head coach at Hamline (Minn.) University from 1975-79, Litzenberger was 95-30 with two NCAA Division III Midwest Regional and went to the Final Four.
Hamline led the nation in team defense for three straight seasons (1975-77), and the 1977 club had the leading field goal and free throw shooters in Division III.
He has also served on basketball staffs at Eastern Washington and Northern Colorado. He was a two-year letterman at Northern Colorado in 1967-68 and earned his bachelors' and masters' degrees from that institution.
Litzenberger, 45, is single. He is a military veteran, earning an honorable discharge in 1976.
Demon coach Dan Bell asd Litzenberger met at a coaching clinic more than 10 years ago. Their friendship led to a home-an-home series between Northwestern and Colorado State in 1990-91.
Their mutual respect produced what appears to be an intriguing partnership - Bell, a proponent of fast-breaking motion offenses, and Litzenberger, whose aggressive pressure defenses could produce lots of easy shots for the Demons this season.
