Fuller begins quest for national prominence

Rudy Fuller takes over the Penn men's soccer team for George O'Neill. We should all wish that our college recommendations were as good as the ones new men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller received during Penn's search for a replacement for the departed George O'Neill. "I knew all of the candidates involved, and they couldn't hold a candle to Rudy," Johns Hopkins coach and one-time Penn coaching candidate Matt Smith said. "I told [Senior Associate Athletic Director] Carolyn Schlie Femovich that it was either Rudy or they had to open the search again. He will do wonders with the program." That is lofty praise for a 26-year-old who just landed his first collegiate head coaching job. So what is it that causes glowing remarks to fly from all directions about Fuller's potential to pull Penn out of its sudden collapse? "He is one of the most likable people," Fuller's former coach and boss at Georgetown, Keith Tabatznik, said. "[Players] respect the fact that he has a good grasp of the game." Fuller may be young for a head coach in a major Division I program, but he has apparently always been on the fast track of coaching. Before his senior season at Georgetown, Tbataznik discussed hiring Fuller to be his full-time assistant following graduation. Fuller was the first real full-time assistant the Hoyas hired in the program's history, as Tabatznik admitted he brought someone in during Fuller's senior season just to hold the position for Fuller. "He really read the game well and understood what we wanted to do," Tabataznik said. It was a tough transition for Fuller to make between the 1992 and '93 seasons as his former best friends became his responsibilities. "Three-quarters of the guys he had played with the year before," Adam Brick, a member of the Georgetown Athletic Administration, said. "That can be a danger, but he was very professional." Under Tabatznik and Fuller, the Hoyas made their first NCAA appearance in 1994, and reached the round of 16 last season. On the side Fuller continued his work with the Maryland Olympic Development Program where he began apprentice coaching while still a player. When Johns Hopkins' Smith moved from head coach to Region Administrator, he passed on the head coaching job to Fuller. "The three years he was head coach he was our region's most successful coach," Smith said. "The state could use him back." Unfortunately for Maryland, Penn needed him more. To their own admission, the 1997 version of the men's soccer team did not have their hearts in the game as the torturous season dragged on. Attitude was a major issue, and O'Neill was held responsible for his inability to continue to motivate the players. A lengthy search ensued after it was announced in December of last year that O'Neill's contract would not be renewed. The goal was to find a coach who could recruit better players, raise funds for the program and find a way to get a talented team to return to its 1996 form. "At a critical junction of the season [last year], six games in, they were 2-4 and had beaten the defending Ivy League champion [Harvard] away," Fuller said. "They went and played two difficult tournaments and lost tight games in each one of those four games. That's when the problems began. "I don't think it was reinforced to them that the reality is that they were 1-0 in the Ivy League. As loss came after loss, things kind of snowballed, and there was nobody pulling the team up." In an effort to both change the team's attitude and begin transforming the program into what he hopes to build in the future, the house cleaning has already begun. More than half a dozen players not returning to this year's team after meeting with Fuller in the spring. "What we have done over the first six or seven months is to trim the team down to players who really want to be part of the program. We have a group of guys who are working very hard to learn about the new coach, to learn about the new system, and have accepted the challenge of becoming a good team." "Coach Fuller demands the best and keeps all of us positive," junior midfielder Jason Karageorge said. "It got to the point where the team didn't even mind getting up for his 8 a.m. track practices this summer." With the players that are still at practice, Fuller is preaching his vision of the season as a journey -- one that could have some serious potholes at the beginning of the season. "We open the season with four very difficult games," Fuller said. "The most important thing for me is not the results of our first four games, but how we react to those results." Fuller said that this year's team will build its offense out of the back half of its field by playing strong defense and pushing to get numbers forward. Even without the personnel to employ an offshoot of the Georgetown system, Fuller thinks there is plenty of talent hanging around Rhodes Field to make this season a winning one. "He knows how to focus on achievable goals," Brick said. At the same time, no one will be shocked to discover that he will also focus attention this fall to his first full recruiting season, looking for players to build his program around. With only 14 field players on this year's roster before walk-on tryouts, Fuller has plenty of room to add his own recruits to the player mix. Smith is even more skeptical of the current state of the Quakers, saying that he expects Fuller to bring in up to 10 players next season, including a handful with the skill to start right away. Fuller is also inheriting a team that stylistically doesn't resemble the ones he has been around since the late '80s. Georgetown traditionally plays an attacking style of soccer, and Matt Smith modeled his ODP program after what he learned working with Tabatznik at Georgetown before Fuller arrived. Eventually, Penn will hopefully have the players to implement the system that has brought national recognition to Georgetown's program. National prominence is still a ways off for the Quakers, but it is certainly part of the itinerary for Fuller's journey. And if Fuller can put Penn on the same fast track his own professional career has taken, that journey may reach its destination more quickly than anyone could guess.

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