Usually, when someone from your alma mater calls, they're asking for a gift.
But for men's soccer coach Rudy Fuller, it's Georgetown that's been doing the giving.
The Penn coach has the Hoyas to thank for his college degree and his first coaching job, but the most recent gifts were just as helpful. And for Fuller, as the saying goes, good things came in threes: rising juniors Richard Frank, Alex Fairman, and Brian Mascarenhas.
All three spent last year playing at the Hilltop, but all three transferred to Penn and will suit up for Fuller next year.
The reasons for the transfers are varied because, strangely, they made the decision totally independent of the others.
Fairman, for example, has strong ties to the Red and Blue. The Ardmore, Pa. native's parents work for Penn, and so Fairman jumped for what he calls "the better opportunity."
There is at least one common thread among all three - they came to Georgetown intending to play for legendary coach Jeff Tabatznik. When Tabatznik stepped down after the 2005 season, they found themselves with current coach Brian Wiese instead.
"Anytime a program has a coaching change, there's going to be disruptions," Fuller said.
Each player felt the shockwaves. Fairman had been a mainstay on Tabatznik's back line in his freshman year, playing in all 20 games for the Hoyas and starting 15 of them. But last year, as a sophomore, he played in only six games. Limited by a foot injury early in the year, he had difficulty cracking the lineup when he recovered, according to Fuller.
Frank and Mascarenhas also found it tougher to get on the field in 2006 than in 2005. Playing for now-defunct Vanderbilt in '05, Mascarenhas made second-team all-Missouri Valley Conference as a freshman. Under Wiese in '06, he didn't start for Georgetown once.
The Hoyas' athletic department did not return a request for comment.
Yet ultimately, all three said the academic and athletic opportunities combined drew them to Philadelphia. And no one at Georgetown threw out Fuller's name when the players were searching for new schools, even though Fuller admits he has "a lot of ties" to his old stomping grounds.
So what at first glance looks like a giant coup for Penn Soccer really came down to a couple of lucky coincidences.
That doesn't matter to Fuller, of course. Now, he can add a few more experienced bodies (a defender, a midfielder and a forward) to a burgeoning roster. After going through last year with only 18 players, he now has 25 heading into the new season.
And though he admitted getting everyone enough action will be a challenge, he says his team gained some needed depth and is now the perfect size.
The grass looks a lot greener for the coach, and for his players, too, who say they're ready to start from square one again to fight for playing time.
"There's a lot of things.it's about how fit you are in the preseason," Fairman said of the path to getting back on the field more this year. "It's about how you come to play."
If their new beginnings at Rhodes Field are anything like the promising starts to their college careers, there will be no worries about whether they've come to play.
