Adam Fuller has reach ed the pinnacle of football.
But the newly-minted NFL coach will never forget where he came from.
“I was just a kid going to Saint William’s church on Sundays and going down to Livingston Street and hitting baseballs,” Fuller said.
The 1994 Tewksbury High graduate forever dreamed of making it big as a youngster in Tewksbury with high athletic aspirations. And after over 20 years of collegiate coaching experience from the Div. 3 to Div. 1 ranks, Fuller was named safeties coach of the Los Angeles Chargers last month to join Jim Harbaugh’s staff.
Fuller certainly paid his dues in the college circuit, beginning as a linebackers coach at WPI in 1998 and most recently serving as the defensive coordinator at Florida State since 2020.
But it all started in Tewksbury — not exactly a hotbed for NFL prospects.
“That’s not one of those places that you have NFL people walking around town,” Fuller said.
After being a member of a Redmen team that played in the Div. 1 Super Bowl in 1990, ultimately falling short against Peabody, Fuller graduated in 1994 and went on to play college ball at Sacred Heart University.
He garnered All-America status in 1996 as a linebacker, but he had a gut feeling his career would end in college. His playing career, that is.
After a conversation with his Sacred Heart coaching staff, Fuller kickstarted his coaching career at WPI.
“I didn’t know at that point what it was going to entail or what I was going to do or if it was going to be my life — I just knew I loved football, and I didn’t know what else to start doing with my life yet,” Fuller said.
Fuller never looked back, making coaching stops at Wagner, Richmond, Assumption, Chatanooga, Marshall, Memphis and Florida State from 1999-2024.
Fuller said it was always his goal to make it to the NFL. As he worked his way up the coaching ladder, he made an effort to put his name out in the NFL landscape however he could — whether it was writing letters to coaches and coordinators or visiting team practices.
“I wanted to just get better at the jobs I had, but every time I had time when I was a younger coach, I would travel everywhere I could to just about every NFL franchise and study and be around people just so when the moment came I’d be ready for it,” Fuller said.
Fuller fell in love with the process of becoming a better coach.
“There’s really no end of the day or start of the day — everything is just a continuation.
Those are just things I really got caught up in,” Fuller said.
That preparation set the table for Fuller to establish himself as one of the most renowned defensive coordinators in the nation at Florida State. In 2023, he quarterbacked a Seminoles defense that enjoyed a 13-1 campaign while allowing just 19.3 points per game.
Fuller produced a plethora of NFL talent. He said he’s coached 26 defensive players who elevated themselves to the league, including 2024 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Jared Verse of the LA Rams.
“It gives validity to you and the work you’ve done when you start having a lot of players that are playing in the NFL,” Fuller said. “They see how prepared they are.”
Fuller will shift gears from defensive coordinator to the safeties, a position he has specific experience coaching at Marshall in 2018.
Still, he stressed the “collaborative” nature of Harbaugh’s staff and is ready to contribute in any way he can.
But when Fuller takes the field this fall on the NFL sidelines, he’ll think about the kids like him back home in Tewksbury with dreams the size of football fields.
“It’s going to show any kid back there now — I just happen to be coaching in the NFL — but it could be anything. And you can accomplish anything you put your mind to… people always want to make excuses why they can’t, but when you show people that do, I think it just gives people inspiration and hope,” he said.
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