Marshall University Athletics
MCGILL: New DC Fuller driven by the love of the game
8/29/2018 8:14:00 AM | Football, Word on the Herd
Marshall opens the season this Saturday at Miami (Ohio)
By Chuck McGill
HerdZone.com
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Twenty years ago, Adam Fuller was a graduate of Sacred Heart University without a certain future. He had a degree in criminal justice from SHU, where he played college football and was a team captain, and returned to his home state of Massachusetts to take the trooper entrance exam.
"I remember driving back after taking the test," Fuller said, "and thinking there was no way."
Now, Fuller is preparing for his first season as Marshall University's defensive coordinator. He was elevated to the position in the offseason after Chuck Heater departed for Maryland. Fuller had spent five seasons working under Heater as the linebackers coach – among other duties – but Fuller has been preparing himself for this moment since the day he pushed a career in law enforcement out of his mind.
The paychecks weren't impressive in the infancy of Fuller's coaching career, but he stretched every dollar and welcomed every bit of information he could find on football and coaching.
"Every time I made a little extra money I'd spend it on a book or a video or go to a coaches' clinic," Fuller said. "Coaching became a lifestyle."
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Fuller was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, a town located a little more than 30 minutes northwest of Boston. He was raised by his mother and has a younger brother. Fuller's mother remarried when he was 10, and they relocated to nearby Tewksbury. Beyond Fuller's own household, a large family surrounded him.
"We were really, really tight," he said. "Every Sunday was a huge get-together. It was a great family dynamic."
Sundays were for ping pong, darts and softball. Fuller adored his family, and grew especially fond of his grandfather, who fought in World War II and was a recipient of a Silver Star and Purple Heart. Fuller's grandfather built his own house, raised a family and worked to support them.
"He was a man's man," Fuller said. "Everything he did was through hard work and it created a great culture for our family."
That is what inspired Fuller to major in criminal justice when he struggled to find a path. He didn't know any police or first responders, but his grandfather's military history nudged him. It was also Fuller's grandfather who made the pitch to Fuller's mother to let young Adam try football.
"I was 10," Fuller recalled, "and I just loved it."
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The Monday after the police exam, Fuller returned to Sacred Heart to ask head coach Tom Radulski for assistance in breaking into coaching. Fuller's hope was that Radulski would add him to the staff there, but Radulski arranged for Fuller to join the program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute – known as WPI – as a linebackers coach.
It was Fuller's initiation into coaching, but after one season the head coach at WPI was let go and Fuller plotted his next move. A man named Henry Quinlan, who had coached Fuller at Sacred Heart, landed the defensive coordinator job at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York. Quinlan called Fuller about a graduate assistant job at Wagner and asked if Fuller would be interested.
"I drove down there and thank goodness I got the job," Fuller said. "I had spent eight months at WPI, but three or four months into the Wagner job I realized coaching was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life."
Fuller spent one season as a GA before he was promoted to secondary coach and special teams coordinator. Suddenly, he went from making a measly thousand dollars to $20,000. He was 23 years old, living on Staten Island and met his future wife, Hope, who was in graduate school at Wagner.
"I'm on top of the world," Fuller said. "I knew that I could work really hard at coaching and like it at the same time and use it as a career."
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Prior to being hired at Marshall, Fuller spent four seasons as the defensive coordinator at Chattanooga – an FCS program. He had a one-year stint as the head coach at Assumption, a small liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts. Before that, he spent three seasons at the University of Richmond – working under current Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson – following six seasons at Wagner.
Fuller lists his high school coach, Left Aylward, Radulski, Quinlin, Wagner head coach Walt Hameline, Clawson and Chattanooga head coach Russ Huesman among his biggest inspirations outside of Marshall. Fuller joined the Thundering Herd to learn from the likes of Heater, a college coaching veteran, and Doc Holliday, the head coach at Marshall since the 2010 season.
Now, Fuller is the one inspiring coaches.
"We've always clicked," said Marshall linebackers coach Byron Thweatt, who coached with Fuller at Richmond. "We had a good relationship back then. We bounce ideas off each other. One thing about him, he takes pride in the assistants working for him. He might have a great idea, but if we don't think it's such a great idea, then we're not going to do it. We work together. Sometimes you work for people who are my way or the highway."
That is certainly not Fuller, a man who found himself on a Massachusetts highway that led him directly to a life in college football and coaching.
"Anytime you can wake up, go to work, love everything you're doing and want to get better at it – and that can be your living – well," Fuller said, "that's the goal."
Chuck McGill is the Assistant Athletic Director for Fan/Donor Engagement and Communications at Marshall University and a six-time winner of the National Sports Media Association West Virginia Sportswriter of the Year award. In addition to HerdZone.com's Word on the Herd, McGill is the editor of Thundering Herd Illustrated, Marshall's official athletics publication. Follow him on Twitter (@chuckmcgill) and Instagram (wordontheherd).
