By any measure, Friedrichs is a leader in his field

His brand-new hall-of-fame ring, complete with a "Stevenson green" gem, is worn proudly on his right hand.

"My parents and my wife decided I needed one," Larry Friedrichs says with his unmistakable chuckle. "Since I never got a high school ring and never had a college ring, it's a good thing to have."

That's about the extent to which Stevenson's longtime coach will toot his own horn. The truth -- besides the fact that his tooting instrument of choice is a trumpet -- is that he'd rather put emphasis on the so many high school kids he's worked with in classrooms and on ball fields.

A teacher and coach at Stevenson since the fall of 1983, his career has spanned two decades as the Patriots' head softball coach. Softball has granted him highlights that include a pair of Elite Eight appearances, a 30-win season and the privilege of coaching his daughter.

"He's kind of a laid-back guy and has a sense of humor to go along with that, too," says Doc Moore, Friedrichs' pitching coach the last eight years. "He knows his softball."

Last February, Friedrichs was inducted in the Illinois Coaches Association softball hall of fame. A couple of weeks back, the bespectacled coach with the always well-groomed beard notched his 400th career win. He entered the season six shy.

"The hall-of-fame thing was an honor," he says. "But I think it's more about the kids."

He's referring to his professional career as a teacher and coach. It's been surprisingly rich -- surprisingly because Friedrichs has coached soccer and softball and worked in special education, three areas he had little, if any, interest in when he graduated college.

A 1972 graduate of Elk Grove -- "when Kenny Grams was a young teacher," he says with that chuckle again of the Grenadiers' own hall-of-fame softball coach -- Friedrichs was all about music in high school. So much so that the trumpet player didn't have time to play sports.

"It's like here (at Stevenson)," Friedrichs says. "It's hard for a kid to be a musician and be an athlete. Either one takes a lot of time to do well."

Friedrichs certainly did music well, earning a music scholarship to Northern Illinois University, where he continued to play in band (jazz, orchestra, symphonic). He earned his degree in music, graduating in December of 1976.

"Right about when everybody was cutting their music and fine arts programs," says Friedrichs, grinning. "Poor timing."

The recent college grad had options, though. His grandfather owned a 20-acre nursery in Sheboygan, Wis., and was looking to groom someone to someday take over the family business.

"He wanted to send me to school for horticulture," Friedrichs says.

With all due respect to grandpa, however, this wasn't sweet music to the music major. He believed he had a strong work ethic, just maybe not as strong as his grandfather's.

"I wasn't really interested in going into horticulture and doing those 4 a.m.-to-10 p.m. days," Friedrichs says.

So he worked retail music and did substitute-teaching. A long-term sub job at Arlington High School in special ed helped him identify a passion.

"I just got excited about the whole field and I went back to school and got my masters (in special ed)," Friedrichs says. "I was far more marketable in that field than the music field."

He found employment at Buffalo Grove High School and was a Bison for three years, but never coached.

"While I was there I felt to kind make myself a little more valuable to them I would offer to coach," Friedrichs says. "They weren't interested in having me for anything because I hadn't, like, starred (in sports) in high school or college."

It was different at Stevenson. He was actually encouraged to coach a sport and was willing to learn.

Friedrichs became the boys freshman soccer coach in the fall of 1983. Last fall marked his 25th year in that role.

After serving as freshman softball coach for one year and JV softball coach for two, he replaced Wayne O'Brien as head coach in 1988. Friedrichs was taking over a program that had enjoyed double-digit wins in only two of 14 seasons.

"I was fortunate enough for (former athletic director) Ken (Johnson) to take a chance on me," he says.

Stevenson won 10 games in each of Friedrichs' first two seasons, then slipped to 4-21 in 1990.

The Patriots' varsity diamond was adjacent to where it currently sits. The old field probably isn't missed.

"There was a creek, and a tree line, and there were ruts that ran through field," Friedrichs says. "Our play was representative of what we played on.

"We had kids come to informational meetings and they'd say, 'Do we need a mitt for this?' They had no idea what it was supposed to be about."

In time, he got kids to understand that they were building a program. They needed to be patient and so did he.

All the while, he was growing as a coach, learning a sport he never played competitively. He boned up on the game anyway he could, attending coaching clinics, making a video library, and watching college softball on television.

Stevenson went 24-7 in 1995, and the Patriots have been a perennial power in Lake County ever since. If not for winning "only" 19 games in 2003, they would own 13 straight 20-win seasons. They went 30-8 two springs ago.

The Patriots went to state in 1998 and again in '99. Deanna Warkins started in left field on the '98 team and serves as Friedrichs' varsity assistant this spring.

"He's one of the most even-keeled, nicest guys I know," Warkins says. "He's always been there, even when I was a player, as a friend and also as somebody who can teach you a lot. … He'll do anything for you."

Bet his dad will attest to that.

On March 11, less than a month after Friedrichs was inducted into the hall of fame, his mother, Shirley, passed away at age 79.

She had gone into the hospital in early January, after falling and breaking her ankle.

"One thing led to another in there," Friedrichs said. "It was about nine weeks from when she went in to when she passed away."

After she died, Friedrichs focused on his father, Jerome. Assistant coaches Warkins and Moore handled the softball team, whose season was about to begin.

"I couldn't have imagined they would have taken care of things as well as they did," says a grateful Friedrichs.

His parents were not strangers to Stevenson softball games.

"It was just like when I was in high school," Friedrichs says. "They came to everything I had for music. When we had big games (at Stevenson), they were there."

Friedrichs, who's Stevenson's assistant director of special ed, will be 55 in November.

His daughter Christine, his former first baseman, is graduating from Illinois Wesleyan University, but he and his wife of 28 years, Judy, will not be empty-nesters just yet. Son Scott will be a freshman in the fall.

So, Friedrichs' coaching wins figure to keep increasing for a few more years.

"I partly joke that I'm not in a hurry (to retire) because Scott's just coming into high school," Friedrichs says.

"I'll have college bills again."

He chuckles again.

It's easy on the ears.

The old music major still has it.