Everyday Champion -- James Fulmer
Beaver senior rower James Fulmer of Atlantic City, N.J. transferred to Oregon State two years ago. Since his arrival in Corvallis, James has been making his mark on the water, within the athletic department and in the community. James has been a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was recently selected as a Pac-10 All-Academic first team member.
This week, James’ collegiate rowing career comes to a close when the Beavers compete at the IRA (Intercollegiate Rowing Association) National Championships at Cherry Hill, N.J. in OSU’s Varsity 8+. James recently took time before leaving for IRAs to talk with Brittany Ornelas of the OSU Athletics Communications staff.
Q. How did your career in rowing begin?
A. In high school, I was a football player and wrestler. I tried out for the baseball team my freshman year, they were quite good and I got cut. I wanted to join up with something that would keep me in shape for the other two sports. I talked to the rowing coach and asked if I could try it out for a week and did so. I wound up liking it better than football and wrestling. I came back the next year and did really well, and decided to drop the other two sports so I could focus on that to try and get recruited into college. Then I went to Rutgers.
Q. How did you end up in Oregon?
A. Rutgers University was my first school I went to my freshman and sophomore year. After my sophomore year, they announced that due to state budget cuts they would be cutting six varsity sports from their department with men’s rowing being one of them. I had no desire to stay on a club team with no funding, and my mother was looking forward to moving out west, so I packed up and called a couple coaches. Oregon State worked out best with their success and my credits transferring went smooth.
Q. You compete at the IRA (Intercollegiate Rowing Association) National Championships this week, what does it mean to be competing in your home state for your final collegiate race?
A. Of course, where they hold IRAs is on the Cooper River and I have been racing there for seven years now. We raced the state championships in high school there. I wouldn’t want to say it’s an advantage, but I know a lot of the guys who will be going there for the first time. They spend a lot of time getting their bearings, but when I get there I am already in gear and ready.
Q. You’ve been involved in SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee) since you arrived at OSU. What role have you been filling this year?
A. This past academic year, I was the student athletic advisory committee community chair service person. I was in charge of organizing community service events and providing all the teams opportunities to get their community service hours for the year or just extra stuff to put on their resumes.
Q. How are you able to maintain a high GPA and be involved in a full-time collegiate sport?
A. That’s a tough question, but to be honest with you the only answer I can think of is being on a sport probably makes me more diligent with school work and helps me get a better GPA. I noticed in high school and when I was out of season at Rutgers, that when I had more time to myself, I wasted a lot more time and slacked a little bit. When I got here, my focus was more on school and rowing equally. I had no time to do anything else, so I focused mainly on those two and made them as best as I could.
Q. What are your post graduation plans?
A. I have to come back in the fall, or possibly this summer to take some back core classes that I was not able to transfer over. After that I am going to see what I can do as far as working in the health industry with athletic training or physical training. Depending on how far that goes, I am still interested in applying to physical therapy school to get a doctorate in a physical therapy.
Q. Are you going to pursue rowing after you leave OSU?
A. Absolutely, I think that had this year gone a little bit better for me; I would have had that chance to do some rowing this summer at higher levels. That doesn’t mean I can’t take that further into future years, I know that the average age for National teams is close to 25 or older. So it’s one of those Olympic sports that you reach your potential after college. I don’t anticipate that this is the end of rowing for me.
Q. Being a senior, what responsibilities do you have?
A. With crew, the senior involvement within the boat is probably a bigger part of the success than any other team because you only have eight guys in the boat and conferences and coaches usually like to measure success or future success of a team based on how many seniors they have who are in the varsity eight the previous year. So returning guys are very important for our team success, because each returning guy comes has a huge amount of knowledge and experience within the sport which benefits greatly at the varsity level.
Q. What advice would you give to incoming student-athletes?
A. I think the most important thing for beginner rowers or rowers starting off in college in trying to quickly adapt to the volume of work because it is definitely not the same as high school or any other sport you have done. With that you have to realize that with crew, the work you put in during fall or early season directly correlates with the success you have in the spring. You can’t get fast by the time races come around if you trying to get in shape after you arrive on campus.
