{"id":1202,"date":"2014-04-18T16:43:26","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T16:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1202"},"modified":"2014-04-18T16:43:26","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T16:43:26","slug":"fullington-visits-green-bay-packers-may-visit-other-teams-and-waits-for-the-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=1202","title":{"rendered":"Fullington visits Green Bay Packers, may visit other teams, and waits for the NFL draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Terry<\/a><\/p>\n

TERRY MOSHER<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 44 years as a local sportswriter, I can recall just two guys who have come out of North Mason and have had a large impact on the college football scene \u2013 Ken Henningsen and now John Fullington.<\/p>\n

Henningsen was a six-foot-seven, 285-pound gentle giant who in the early 1990s earned a full scholarship to play football at Eastern Washington. He had an immediate impact there and was destined it seemed to have a great career and move on to the NFL.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Henningsen suffered a serious knee injury and then a serious heart condition \u2013 Atrial fibrillation \u2013 that ended his career. Tragically, his heart then gave out in November of 2010 and at the age of 37 he died, leaving behind many grieving friends and family.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JOHN FULLINGTON<\/p>\n

Now comes along Fullington, a six-foot-five, 310-pound offensive lineman who \u2013 strange as it sounds \u2011 graduated from North Mason the same year Henningsen died. Like Henningsen, Fullington was highly recruited and accepted a full scholarship to WashingtonState, where he would become an offensive line starter his freshman year and go on to start 43 consecutive games (tied for the school record by an offensive lineman) for the Cougars over the next four years.<\/p>\n

Fullington is just not a good football player, but a good person as well whose academics has been in line with that. He graduated early \u2013 last December \u2013 with a degree in Kinesiology and is currently throwing the shot put for the WSU track and field team while waiting to see if an NFL team will draft him in the upcoming draft May 8-10.<\/p>\n

Tuesday he visited at the Green Bay Packers with several others and went through the usual routine given to pre-draft prospects by NFL teams. He returned home late Wednesday night to Pullman and is waiting to see if the other 10 or so NFL teams who have expressed an interest in him will ask him to visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has had a lot of interest from teams,\u201d says Fullington\u2019s Seattle agent, Collin Roberts. \u201cThey all want medical records on him. Off the top of my head he has gotten calls from Kansas City, Miami, New York Giants, Jacksonville, and Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fullington had a good pro day in mid-March. His 30 reps of 225 pounds in the bench press particularly drew interest from pro scouts that attended. His 40 time was so-so \u2013 a 5.35 \u2013 but then NFL teams are not looking for offensive lineman to run 40 yards in a game.<\/p>\n

From what Roberts has learned, Fullington is either a draft pick in the latter rounds \u2013 the draft has seven rounds \u2013 or a free agent prospect.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the draft is crazy and you never know what teams are going to do,\u201d says Roberts, who just last year started his own agency. \u201cJohn is a great player and even a greater person. I feel honored to represent him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts\u2019 words are echoed by Fullington\u2019s coach at North Mason, Phil Pugh. Pugh is retired from the coaching profession, but keeps in touch with his former player on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done more and gone further than anybody else in football from North Mason,\u201d Pugh said. \u201cHe\u2019s a good person. He\u2019s one of those kids \u2013 he\u2019s a strong Christian \u2013 who is a just a straight arrow and the kind of kid that any coach would be really proud to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fullington won all sorts of league and school awards while at North Mason and continued to collect those at WashingtonState. He played the offensive and defensive lines plus was a tight end at North Mason, and earned all-state honors both on defense and offense his senior year.<\/p>\n

He also played basketball four years \u2013 he helped the Bulldogs to fifth place at state his junior year \u2013 and three years competed with the track and field team, finishing eighth in state in the javelin his sophomore season.<\/p>\n

At Washington State, Fullington several times was mentioned on the all-Pac-12 academic team and this past season was honored with the Mike Utley Award as the Cougar\u2019s best offensive lineman.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always as easy at it sounds for Fullington at WSU. He had to withstand coaching changes from Paul Wulff to Mike Leach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were totally different offenses,\u201d says Fullington, noting that under Leach\u2019s Air Raid offense the Cougars became almost strictly a passing team, which meant that the offensive lineman had to wrap their heads around a completely different way of blocking. But Fullington was able to adapt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it made me a better person,\u201d says Fullington of the change to Leach\u2019s Air Raid offense.<\/p>\n

Late last year, Fullington made another change. He was asked by track and field coaches to come out and throw the shot put. They discovered he was pretty good at it in high school and based on that approached him about it. Fullington said, sure, why not?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted me to throw that weekend against Washington and I said \u2018ok, whatever,\u2019\u201d Fullington said. \u201cI gave it a shot. I got second behind Danny Shelton, a Washington football player. That was the last meet of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fullington threw the shot 50-08.75. He also tossed the discus 103-5. So embolden, Fullington went back out this spring to do it again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked me back this year. I was all for it,\u201d says Fullington, who has thrown the shot put 52-04.<\/p>\n

Fullington is taking classes to get his masters in education just in case this NFL thing doesn\u2019t work out. But even if it does get to play in the NFL, Fullington is set to come back to Belfair as a teacher\/coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI miss the college football experience, and the experience of having spring ball and not being a part of that,\u201d Fullington says. \u201cThe good thing is I have a chance to be on an NFL team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottom line, though, is that he loves Belfair and is close to his family there, so when things finally shake all out it\u2019s a good chance he will be back. But for now, it\u2019s a waiting game as the NFL draft approaches.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TERRY MOSHER   In 44 years as a local sportswriter, I can recall just two guys who have come out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-column","category-mosher","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}