Spokane’s favorite Dawg

Spokane celebrity is not a two-word joke, but it is a relative notion – especially when the celebrity’s hourly wage is roughly equivalent to that of a parking valet.

Still, Charles Frederick gets recognized and stopped in the mall and in restaurants, and when it happens he feels like a million bucks.

“The people are great,” he said. “It’s always, ‘Nice game,’ and, ‘You played great,’ and they say something about not wanting me to leave, about staying in Spokane. It’s not something I expected at all.”

So it’s – sorry, can’t resist – a Shock?

“I just think they’re real happy to have us here and doing so well,” he laughed.

Well, yes, and the evidence is not just the audiences of 10,000-plus that continue to swarm the big house on Howard on Saturday nights for arenafootball2. Spotted the other day on a convenience store marquee as a come-hither for gouge-priced gas was a pitch for Spokane Shock T-shirts, a level of municipal rah-rah normally reserved for “Go Zags.”

The Arena will be jammed again tonight, but this time for high school graduation (which in some individual cases may have required the same sort of last-second heroics central to indoor football). The Shock is in Louisville to face the Fire and it’s almost worth sending out an investigative team to learn how the converts here are going to fill the void.

Turning a minor league player into a civic celeb isn’t so much about football as it is Frankensteinian process. It’s a creature made of spare parts – part disappointment, part something to prove, part exposure to the wild sandlot nature of the game, part a community’s love at first sight. It doesn’t hurt that the well-tended braids which cascade down Frederick’s shoulders make him instantly recognizable, helmet or no.

Nor does it hurt that he’s been the best player on the field the last few games.

Two weeks ago he had four touchdowns – two of them returned fumbles, another a returned onside kick – in a 68-63 win over Quad City. Last week he upped it to five, four of them – gadzooks – rushing touchdowns in a 61-59 thriller over Central Valley.

But you can miss three TDs standing in the beer line. What you didn’t want to miss last Saturday was the decapitating blind-side block by Frederick that turned some Shock trickery into a half-closing score.

The catches, runs, recoveries, blow-up hits and low-bridge tackles have earned Frederick the af2’s “Ironman of the Week” designation for two-way players – a distinction that might detonate a few explosions inside the head of his last college coach, Keith Gilbertson.

Frederick caught 121 passes in his career at the University of Washington, and in one game broke Hugh McElhenny’s Husky record with 371 all-purpose yards. But he had just 17 receptions as a senior in a 2004 season spent mostly in the training room. At one point Gilbertson groused that “I’ve never known a hamstring injury to last eight weeks” – and don’t think Frederick didn’t feel that barb.

“I know a lot of people were down on me after I hurt my leg,” he said. “But I did everything I could to get back.”

The fact is, he still wasn’t whole last year when he failed in two NFL tryouts, as well as with the AFL’s Philadelphia Soul. Frustrations mounting, Frederick came into 2006 “ready to sign with the first team that gave me a shot.”

And that call came from Spokane – where the victories and the adulation have revived feelings that take Frederick back to his boyhood.

“This game is just fun,” he said. “Everything is interesting. The ball bouncing off the net. If you run into the wall, you can keep going. College, the NFL don’t have none of that. And I like playing defense, I really do.”

Shock coach Chris Siegfried insisted that all his receivers do – after an initial sales pitch.

“They all wanted to play defensive back,” he said. “But I told them once they started playing that ‘jack’ linebacker, they’re going to love it. That’s where you can have a real impact on the game.

“Charles has been a surprise. We didn’t anticipate him being that good, but he’s made some huge plays. The guy’s a warrior.”

A warrior? Keith Gilbertson, white courtesy telephone, please.

Not that Charles Frederick is going to let a grudge interrupt his good time.

“Everything’s great,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun like this.”