Fuld Connects

With a four-year batting average near .600, Sam Fuld had talent scouts from across the country watching his every move this spring.

Recent grad Samuel B. Fuld finds practical applications in his theory of enjoyment and success. "Luckily, I was born with some natural ability to play baseball, an ability I don't really have in other sports. Probably as a result of that, I've always enjoyed baseball the most and been most willing to work at it." Fuld, a three-season athlete at Exeter, has been most successful in baseball. He was named the Dana Wingate Most Valuable Player as a prep and then made it a clean four-year sweep. He was recruited by two dozen colleges, ultimately deciding on the basis of projected playing time and academics that Stanford was the best place for him.

Sam Fuld is like many other student athletes at Exeter: he has found a formula that allows him to perform well both on the field and in the classroom. "The most important thing you need to do at Exeter to be successful both academically and athletically is learn how to budget your time. If you play a sport at Exeter, you have very little time to do your homework and any other activity that may take up time." During the spring, Exeter fields 12 different varsity and seven JV teams, involving 220 students on the varsity level alone. All of them know the physical and practical demands of daily practices and twice-weekly contests. "I know that to be successful with sports and academics you need to make some sacrifices, and I'm sure it is even more true in college," Fuld says. "At Exeter, I've learned how to focus on the task at hand, and not to be distracted by something else. If I have a big game on a Wednesday or Saturday afternoon, I still have to be very focused during the classes I have that day."

If he had not signed a letter of intent to attend Stanford early in the spring, this season could have been one of the most distracting of all for Fuld. Since playing in last summer's Area Code Games in California, he has been watched by scouts from major league baseball. He was selected as a preseason first-team All American by Baseball America magazine, and throughout the spring there was talk of his being a first-round pick in the baseball draft. Yet the fleet-footed lefty centerfielder with a deceptively good arm says, "I don't want the whole pro side of it to get in the way, really." Still, with the statistics and reviews he has been receiving, pro ball could well be in his future. Even now, he's a hot media item.

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"There's a strong breeze blowing toward left field, which leads to pregame speculation about what Sam Fuld might do with a thigh-high fastball, middle of the plate in," led a Union Leader story by Vin Sylvia, one of the sports writers now following Fuld. "You should have seen the shot he hit Wednesday. It landed between second and first base on the JV field," smiles Phillips Exeter coach Bill Dennehy, gesturing toward a distant spot in left-center. "The scouts who were here estimated it at 450 feet. After the game, I got out my tape measure. It was 468." "Did you know that in four seasons here, he's struck out once?" a fan says. "He's struck out once!" Hyperbole? "No," says Dennehy, "But he has swung and missed twice."

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Dennehy is completely serious when he talks about Fuld's hitting. "In four years, I've seen him not make contact, maybe four times. And yes, he's struck out once." His four-year batting average around .600 corroborates Dennehy's story. And how does he do it? With his index finger, Dennehy points to his eye. Then he stacks his fists one on top of the other and stares at them, the implication being that hitting's all eye-hand coordination.

If Exeter students are ever "typical," then Fuld fits right in. Of average size, he is unassuming about his special talents. He's a day student from nearby Durham, NH. He competes in three sports-soccer in the fall, track where he runs sprints to increase his speed in the winter, and baseball in the spring. Of all his classes, his favorites have been math classes, "as well as just about every elective I've taken during my senior year."

As a representative of Exeter on the field, he follows in a long tradition of sportsmen. "Being involved in athletics at Exeter is both an honor and a challenge. I know of the long history here, with our Exeter/Andover rivalry," he says. "I know sports involve a lot of self-discipline and dedication, but it is very well worth it." When he graduated in June, Fuld already had the level headedness that will help him succeed in whatever big leagues are in his future.