It’s no question that J.B. Fitzgerald’s hands are a valuable component of what he is able to do on the field, but it’s their size — and his head — that may have helped him stand out and turn recruiters from colleges around the nation onto his ability.##M:[more]##
At the end of his sophomore year at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, more than 20 prominent colleges around the nation began seeking commitment from Fitzgerald, one of the nation’s top-ranked linebackers, to their programs. Coincidentally, it came after High School South football coach Todd Smith had a unique idea of his own.
“Coach Smith had told me that at the end of his sophomore year, he took J.B.’s hand and put it on a photocopier machine,” said David Fitzgerald, J.B.’s father. “He mailed it out to all these schools.”
“He has a huge hand,” he said of his son, who ultimately chose to attend the University of Michigan, where he received a full scholarship. “I think he started getting hits that way.”
The incident was the first glimpse of the road ahead, an experience that would open his parents’ eyes to the uniqueness of the recruiting process itself — one that David Fitzgerald says “is really a business.”
David and his wife, Vanessa, have lived in West Windsor for the last 19 years, and J.B. was the only one of their children to be born and raised in New Jersey. Before that, the Fitzgeralds, who are originally from California, lived in Chicago for two and a half years. David, whose father worked for the Air Force, lived in different places, including England for some time, as a result of his father’s career. He met Vanessa in California. He served in the Army for four years, including a period where he and Vanessa lived in Germany. They moved back to California, and he has served in the Army Reserves ever since.
When the couple moved back to California, he got a civilian job, and they eventually made their way to West Windsor. They currently live in Crown Pointe. David served one year in Iraq during J.B.’s freshman year. J.B.’s two older sisters both attended college — one graduated from Muhlenberg College and is a sales representative for Pfizer, and the other is graduating from Howard University this month and is hoping to be a broadcast reporter.
But for David, who is now currently a senior executive with a consulting firm in New York City, and Vanessa, a second grade teacher at Town Center Elementary School, even with their life experience, there really wasn’t a way to prepare for the recruiting process with their son.
“You can’t prepare yourself because you’re not sure it’s going to happen,” David Fitzgerald said, referring to the chances a well-known college will offer such a deal to an athlete.
He says as the couple got deeper and deeper into the recruiting process with their son, they were surprised how competitive the schools were becoming to get the star athletes to sign the letters of intent. And outside influence was also a major factor, like online chatrooms that put pressure on various schools and booster clubs.
One example of the competition happened after Fitzgerald had announced he had chosen Michigan. The following week, Greg Schiano, the head coach of the Rutgers University football team actually came out to watch a full half of South’s first game of the season.
“I don’t know how he got there, I just remember seeing him on the field,” Vanessa Fitzgerald, J.B.’s mother said. “His helicopter did come and land somewhere and picked him up and flew him out.”
“It kind of circled the stadium, which was pretty impressive for West Windsor,” David added. “It was a very big deal.”
David said the coach was probably looking at his son, but also a few other good athletes on the team as well.
Vanessa Fitzgerald said the couple didn’t actively try to get J.B. recruited, but rather things started to fall in place on their own. He started to get mail from various schools during his sophomore year after his coach starting sending out information about him, including the picture of his large hand.
The couple recalled the first hit their son received was from the University of Virginia, when he was asked to attend their junior day in the fall of 2006.
The family took their first visit to the school, and were impressed with the professionalism and organization of the school, particularly its sports program. The football program actually had its own large separate building, as opposed to a small coach’s office, as the couple had expected.
“It was very enlightening for us,” said David Fitzgerald. Since then, “every school’s (program was) like that or larger.”
Fitzgerald ultimately received about 20 offers from schools from the west to east coasts and in between — including Stanford, Georgia Tech, Duke, Boston College, Michigan, UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Purdue.
David Fitzgerald said his son could have received more, but Smith received a number of calls from some of the schools asking whether they even had a chance he’d accept.
At that point, “J.B. almost had his mind set on a couple of good schools that he wanted to go to,” his father said, adding Smith told those schools whether or not they were in the running. Some colleges can only make so many offers each year, and are cautious about wasting them.
Some colleges were also creative in their offers. One from Duke came with a letter stating it would like to offer him a scholarship — accompanied with a laminated check for $250,”000.
When it came down to it, J.B. had to make a decision. Because it doesn’t happen every day that a WW-P student is so highly sought after, there is no special counseling or specific guidance that J.B. received from the school district, but Coach Smith was there to give advice, and his parents say that the decision was ultimately up to their son. They were grateful for Smith’s help, though. “I don’ think J.B. would have gotten in that situation he’s been in during the past year,” if it weren’t for Smith, Vanessa said. “He really enjoys what he does as a coach and has given above and beyond.
Smith said he did go on some trips with Fitzgerald and offered some advice, but for the most part, however, it was J.B. who made the decision. “When it came down to it, he made the short list of what he was looking for in a college.”
The full scholarship offered to Fitzgerald by Michigan to play football is good even if he gets injured. In fact, “Michigan was probably the only school that said, ‘If you get hurt in high school, we will still honor your scholarship,’” David Fitzgerald said.
Once Fitzgerald made his decision to go to Michigan, the process wasn’t over. Since he was one of the top ten linebackers in the country — a rank given to him by ESPN — he was one of the recruits who was asked to make their college choices known exclusively through the station.
Twenty of Fitzgerald’s friends, his coaches and his family traveled to New York City with him one night in August to watch him make the announcement. “It was a pretty exciting night for us, his family, as well as all his friends and coaches,” Vanessa Fitzgerald said.
In order to make the final decision, David Fitzgerald said he and his son visited a number of schools in the spring. On his first visit to Michigan, he really liked the coaching staff and the academic program that it offered.
“But he was very mature in his decision making,” David said. “He wanted to take a look at all the other schools. He visited probably half of them that he really had an interest in.”
Over the summer, he sat down and organized the schools into tiers — the top three, middle three and then the rest. When it came time to look at his top three schools, it actually came down to their academic programs.
“He said he had to really feel right being at the school, being on the campus,” David recalled. The University of Florida and Rutgers were among his top three picks, along with Michigan, he said.
“I don’t think there probably was a real running chance for Florida,” he said. “Certainly there was some consideration for Rutgers.”
When his son looked at Michigan, “I don’t think there was any other school that was really close when we took a look at their programs,” he said.
Duke and California Tech were great schools, but they were a bit too far for Fitzgerald, who also liked the one-hour flight from New Jersey to Detroit, his father said.
But academics are also very important to Fitzgerald, who has achieved the same amount of success in the classroom as he does on field, his father said, pointing to the straight A’s his son received on his most recent report card. Even with dedication to good grades — his GPA is 3.4 — and football, his involvement doesn’t stop there.
Fitzgerald has been a peer leader, has served on the student council — including as president of his sophomore class — and he volunteers with the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program at the school, all while maintaining a part time job to earn some spending money. He also played basketball and track and field.
“I don’t know how he does it, but it’s phenomenal to see he’s able to juggle sports, athletics, and social life all in one package,” David said.
“Busy is good, I say. The busier, the better,” said Vanessa.
And his parents are sure he will do the same at Michigan. “We are very proud, not because he’s a great athlete — that’s just part of the formula,” said David Fitzgerald. “He’s got great character. He’s an absolutely phenomenal student. Athletics just happens to be an extracurricular activity that he happened to do well in.”
Smith agrees: “He’s one of the best in country. He’s the complete package. He’s got a great family life, he’s got great grades, he’s got great character, and he’s a great player.”
And even though Fitzgerald is disappointed that Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr announced his resignation on November 19, “those things in life have to happen. Unfortunately the timing wasn’t the greatest, but J.B. is still interested,” David Fitzgerald said. He called Carr a “class act and somebody you certainly want your son to be around because he would take care of him. He’s got great character and great values.”
Still, he said that “it is one of the top three coaching jobs in the country, so whoever they bring in will probably be a good coach.”
Even though his parents know from experience — J.B. has two older sisters — that students can change their minds once at college, J.B. is looking to go into sports management once at Michigan. “He likes the physical therapy side of it as well,” David Fitzgerald said, adding that sports medicine could be part of sports management, but J.B. seems to be interested more in the business side of it, and is excited to begin school there. “We’ll see what happens in the future.”
“We as parents really love the academic support they give their athletes,” David Fitzgerald added.
Included in the scholarship is room, board, books, practically everything. The football program itself is a rigorous 11-month program, where Fitzgerald will get four weeks off in June-July, and head right back into football, his father said.
Fitzgerald has been playing football since he was in first grade, but it wasn’t the only sport he played growing up in West Windsor. Others included karate, baseball, soccer, and many more.
According to his parents, Fitzgerald became interested in football and got all of his friends to play with him when he was in elementary school, and they’ve been playing together ever since — Mike Garzone, Mike Efstathios, Andy McKeever, and Mitch Leibowitz all play with Fitzgerald for High School South.
Coaches, including David Fitzgerald, used to say: “I can’t wait until these kids get into high school because they’re going to be huge.” David Fitzgerald says he has watched them grow into “big, gentle monsters.”
Those gentle monsters made it all the way to the state championship game on November 30 against Howell, and even though the Pirates lost 46-13, they went 10-2 for the season.
Fitzgerald has always set goals pretty high for himself, and he always reaches them, his parents said. While it’s always a dream for Division 1 athletes to make it to the next level of professional football, and playing in the NFL has always been in the back of J.B.’s mind, his parents say they are proud of him regardless of what happens next and are thrilled to see that he’ll have a degree from a really good academic institution.
“Hopefully, if God’s willing and he stays healthy, he might have that opportunity,” said Vanessa Fitzgerald. “We’re just thankful for the opportunity that’s presented.”
