Magic's Channing Frye, Tobias Harris inspired by Tuskegee Airman grandfather

Adi Joseph | USA TODAY Sports

John Mulzac didn't talk much about his days in the skies back then. So it wasn't until grandson Channing Frye was in middle school that he fully understood what his grandfather had been part of 50 years before.

Learning about World War II, Frye, now an Orlando Magic forward, made a connection as he read about the famous but once-forgotten Tuskegee Airmen, the group of African-American pilots who played such a big role in bombing missions. Mulzac — Lt. Colonel Mulzac — was one of fewer than 1,000 pilots trained at the two air fields open to minorities for the war.

"Sixth, seventh grade, I really started to understand the value of what he had done and just how much of an impact he had made in history," Frye told USA TODAY Sports. "It's still something new, every time I hear the story and it's always exciting to know we got that piece in history."

Mulzac joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 and also flew as a reservist in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

In the past 20 years, the Tuskegee Airmen's contributions to the war effort have gained spotlight, peaking with the 2012 George Lucas-produced film Red Tails. But it's the 90-year-old Mulzac who does the watching these days, with two grandsons playing for the same NBA team in the Magic's Frye and Tobias Harris.

"He watches all our games," Harris told USA TODAY Sports. "We try to get him tickets when we're in Brooklyn. He says he'd rather watch it on TV, but he's always watching."

Frye, 31, joined the Magic this offseason as a free agent, taking a four-year, $32 million offer to leave the Phoenix Suns, where he had built a home and a reputation as one of the NBA's best three-point-shooting big men. In doing so, he joined Harris, his 22-year-old cousin who had been looking up to him for years from a distance.

"Growing up, we got to see each other every now and then," Harris said. "I followed him throughout high school, throughout college. He definitely is a mentor, just being older in the NBA and having experience. I go to him for advice on things a lot."

Frye and Harris grew up in different New York City suburbs but often attended family functions, including Mulzac, the family's esteemed patriarch. But Frye went off to the University of Arizona in 2001, when Harris was 9, and after two years on the New York Knicks had spent six on the West Coast, with the Portland Trail Blazers and Suns.

Frye appreciates the return to his East Coast roots.

"The thing is I knew Tobias as a baby," Frye said. "It's kind of weird when you think about it, but I didn't really know Tobias as a man. And I'm learning. It's great to reconnect with my family, and we're learning a lot about each other and making each other better."

Frye and Harris say they stay in contact with their grandfather, and he's happy to be able to watch them playing together for an up-and-coming Magic team. They were starting together early in the season, but Frye since moved to the bench as Harris, who is averaging 18.0 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, was slid down to power forward.

Frye's numbers have dipped this season, to 7.9 points and 4.8 rebounds a game. But he's still shooting 39.8% on threes and providing important leadership on a young roster. He had a good role model for that, a grandfather who espoused humility and caring.

"The funny thing about him, he never really talks about (the war and Tuskegee Airmen)," Frye said. "He'd always talk about growing up and overcoming hardships in his own life, dealing with racism, dealing with those types of issues. He wasn't talking about himself and his own personal accolades and that sort of stuff. ... He just wanted to encourage us in what we were doing."