THE MANY REASONS THE WR WILL FULLER IS ONE
FOR THE TEXANS
After the tears fell, Will Fuller became in awe of the names.
From Andre Johnson to DeAndre Hopkins and Philadelphia-made Jaelen Strong.
Brock Osweiler, Lamar Miller and the Texans’ suddenly state-of-the-art offense, which now has the No. 21 overall pick of the 2016 NFL draft added to its young, athletic, highly intriguing core.
And this is what a Philly kid who’s faster than almost every other football player on the planet says when the power of the truth finally hits him.
That he can be a part of this. That his father’s getting up at 4 a.m. every darn day to inspire a family will soon pay off in a way Fuller’s sisters and brothers once could have never imagined. That all the people who always told him just how special he was — Fuller never listened; he had to feel the real burn himself — were actually right.
He’s a first-round pick. He’s in the NFL. He’s a Texan.
“It’s crazy,” Fuller said. “It’s a surreal feeling.”
It was a slow rise to a ridiculous 4.28 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
Before he was the 6-1, 172-pounder out of prestigious Notre Dame whom Texans general manager Rick Smith had to trade up to take, Fuller was invisible on the field and even harder to find off it.
And before coach Bill O’Brien rediscovered the so-fast-you-can’t-believe-it wide receiver he once lost at Penn State, Fuller first had to convince himself he really was worth the football world’s time.
Working-class family
Philadelphia. Working class. They’re forever linked.
Strong, the Texans’ 2015 third-round pick, lived the true life. Fuller also knows it too well.
Unlike Strong, Fuller always had his father and never fell into the wrong side of the world. But Fuller saw the real world up close every day as a child.
He’s the V in his family’s male line. The IV, William Fuller, started daily construction work before the sun started to rise. After Fuller’s father clocked in, his mother, Megan Mitchell, soon did the same as a bookkeeper. And while Fuller insists he always had food on the table and never walked in darkness, he rose from a working-class family that never stopped defining the term.
“It was hard,” William said. “But we wouldn’t change it for the world.”
As Fuller’s father and mother raised a home, his four sisters owned it. He was shy at heart: humble, calm, content to be lowkey. His sisters were the exact opposite. So Fuller turned to two rarely seen traits. He became aggressive and started demanding public attention, just to be heard.
“(They) never let him speak,” Mitchell said. “Growing up, he was the only boy in the house for a while. He just felt overpowered by all these girls.”
His parents’ daily devotion and Fuller’s growing desire to be known became wrapped together as junior high ended.
It’s hard enough to make it out of Philly as a football player. The thought of not attending a Catholic high school was daunting. The only problem: Leaving the publicschool system meant finding more money.
William and Mitchell somehow found a way. Their boy would run with the best at the same time his feet were starting to fly.
“They had to pay for that, and it was real expensive,” Fuller said. “They made that sacrifice … and that really turned my life around.”
Watershed game
This is what Joe McCourt first remembers.
A small, skinny kid. A quarterback or running back, not a wide receiver. And if the teenager could run, it really didn’t matter, because he still had to grow up.
Then McCourt reaches back and pulls out his next memory. This one still lights up his world.
Roman Catholic’s playing its second game of the season. Fuller’s a slight sophomore no one knows much about. McCourt decides to put the new receiver in the game. Then lightning strikes — three times. Touchdown. Touchdown. Touchdown. “The first three times he touched the ball, he scored,” McCourt said. “And right then and there, it was like, ‘Wow. We’ve got to figure out ways to get this kid (involved).’ ”
Fuller couldn’t be caught and wouldn’t be dragged down. The craziest part: The future Texans first-round pick, who’d eventually make his young name via an NFL combine-best 40 sprint, still didn’t know how special he was.
“He was never fast in high school in his eyes. And that’s where he didn’t have much confidence,” Mitchell said. “Even though people would say, ‘Hey, you’re really good,’ he never believed it.”
As Fuller became more comfortable wrapping his hands around aired-out footballs and blowing past anyone once within reach, his speed grew. But McCourt tied the receiver’s late gridiron rise to off-the-field devotion, not God-given burn.
Inspired by his parents’ work ethic, Fuller began putting in 14-hour days as a 15-year-old. He’d go to school, work out with Roman Catholic, then engage in personal speed training as night began to fall.
“You just knew that this kid wanted it. I almost told him that you’re working too hard,” McCourt said. “He’s a humble kid, he’s a quiet kid, and he came from nothing. Everything he got on the football field, he earned. Everything he got in life, he earned. Nothing was ever handed to him.”
Impressing O’Brien
Notre Dame was perfect for him.
Stay humble. Do the right thing. Play football.
Catch 138 passes over your sophomore and junior years in one of the grandest homes of collegiate tradition, a few years after your parents took you to Nike and Punt, Pass & Kick camps just so someone might want to know who you were.
Attach 30 touchdowns in three Fighting Irish seasons to your blazing name, all the while realizing that yes, Will Fuller V, you really are faster than everyone else around you.
“It gives you a lot of confidence,” Fuller said. “If you run past them one time, they’re going to be scared to death.”
Intensity and humility — Fuller has O’Brien’s Texans written all over him.
It’s a cool story that will only get better over time. O’Brien in his post-Joe Paterno days, searching for the next willing Penn State recruit and being taken by Fuller’s working-class life.
“His parents, they were a very close-knit family,” O’Brien said. “And I felt like the way he carried himself and the way he articulated what he wanted to do, he was the type of kid (we wanted).”
O’Brien eventually lost his 2016 first-round pick to Brian Kelly’s blue and gold. But as with McCourt, a thrilling early memory never faded.
O’Brien was working a Nittany Lions camp when the Texans’ future strength coach, Craig Fitzgerald, semi-jokingly told a kid to get out of his car and immediately sprint a 40. Fuller stopped watches and never left O’Brien’s mind.
“He ran a 4.3 right out of the car, driving from 3½ hours away, so we knew he could run,” O’Brien said. “Going now and talking to the coaches at Notre Dame who spoke very highly of him, we’re very, very excited about working with him.”
Four years after first falling for Fuller, the Texans’ coach drives home why everyone on Kirby Drive already believes in the 22-year-old’s raw speed.
Fuller was blessed with an athletic asset the Texans have long lacked. You can’t teach 4.28. You don’t let it run away again when you need as many offensive weapons as possible in Year Three.
“He’s a guy that can do a lot of different things for us,” O’Brien said. “And I just want people to understand that diversity is so important.”
Rare call for tears
Fuller knows his legs are always ready to fly, so he goes slow while the outside world speeds by.
It’s either football or chill. When he’s not in uniform, he’s likely with his girlfriend, Anna Maria Gilbertson, a former Notre Dame soccer player with professional ties to the Portland Thorns. When he’s not with his girlfriend — who might move to Houston to play for the Dash — it’s Xbox, video games and the laidback quiet life.
Fuller has a little Hopkins in him. He’s unique, knows it and embraces it. The dyed dreadlocks atop his head are a small personal touch. They’re also proof he always wanted to be more than another dumb jock.
“I just wanted to be different,” said Fuller, who’ll spend his first season in Houston by himself. “Coming from Philadelphia, a lot of people don’t have dreads. It’s more like a Southern thing.”
Fuller also has some Strong in him. The Texans’ first step in replacing Johnson watched Friday’s news conference from the back of the room, reconnecting a bond that began with working-class lives, Catholic high school games, and constant predraft texts.
If you make the NFL out of Philly, you never forget the city.
“I just want to have my name on a positive side of things at all times,” Fuller said. “On the field and off the field, just being a positive role model for the younger guys in Philadelphia.”
But ultimately, Fuller’s totally himself.
He’s soft-spoken, intentionally quiet and comfortably able to disappear in a room. He swears he doesn’t cry, though.
But there was the kid who can burn by in 4.28 wearing a brand-new Texans hat and standing alone at the top section of a huge, empty NFL stadium he’ll soon go to work in every day. And there was Fuller recreating the once-in-a-lifetime magic of draft night, when a call two decades in the making finally came and tears started streaming from a Philly kid’s eyes.
“I found my parents, gave them a hug and just started crying,” Fuller said. “I don’t like to cry. I like to keep that same demeanor and never let anyone get to know me. But I had to let that one loose.”
Now all Fuller has to do is fly in Houston.