Drew Fucci - Men's Track & Field Coach - Rice University Athletics

Drew Fucci

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
afucci@comcast.net

Drew Fucci enters his fifth year as an assistant coach at Rice in 2023-24 and brings a wealth of knowledge to the combined events. As a former world-class decathlete and the 1990 NCAA Decathlon Champion, Fucci has not only achieved success in the decathlon but has worked with some of the top decathletes in the country, including Rice alumnus Ryan Harlan.

Harlan was 2004 NCAA Decathlon Champion and three-time Olympic trials qualifier.

In 2022-23, Fucci guided Grant Levesque to a Second Team All-American honor at the NCAA Championships where he finished ninth with 7739 points while setting a personal best in three events (100m, 1500m, Shot Put). Levesque also set a personal high in points weeks prior at the C-USA Championships with 7903 points, finishing second.

Recently Fucci worked diligently with Rice decathletes Scott Filip and Charlie Card-Childers. In 2018, Fucci guided Filip to a C-USA Indoor championship in the Heptathlon (Filip’s fourth victory in the event) and Second Team All-American Honors indoors. Filip, in outdoor track, captured his third C-USA Decathlon title and went on to finish fifth at the NCAA Championships in Eugene in June. After the season was over, Fucci continued to train Filip, who won the Pan Am Decathlon Cup in July in Ottawa, Canada. Prior to the 2018 season, Fucci directed Filip to another fifth place finish and First Team All-American honors at the 2017 NCAA championships, a spot at the 2016 Olympic Trials, and personal best mark of 5785 in the Heptathlon (Rice Record) and 7915 in the Decathlon.

Charlie Card-Childers truly came into his own in the 2018 season under Fucci. His mark of 7369 points to finish in third place finish at the C-USA Championships barely missed qualifying for the NCAA Champs, but it was good enough to earn a spot at the USATF National Championships. There, Card-Childers finished in the Top 10 and garnered a Team USA uniform along the way. He represented the United States in the prestigious Thorpe Cup in July of 2018.

Fucci is a 1990 graduate of Southwest Texas State (Texas State). He first achieved success as a decathlete during his sophomore year scoring 6737 points in his very first decathlon. He went on to break the 7000 point barrier in only his second decathlon. Fucci’s improvement after that was even more impressive. He earned All-American status twice, won conference titles numerous times and he placed at the conference meet in various events including the high jump, long jump and hurdles.

He capped his collegiate career with the 1990 NCAA Decathlon win. Fucci went on to rank nationally for the next eight years, qualifying for the Olympic trials in 1992 and 1996, where he placed fifth.

Fucci competed internationally and won the Spanish National Championship in Barcelona in 1991 and also won the Olympic Festival decathlon in 1995. He had a personal best decathlon score of 8227 and was a five-time member of the Visa Decathlon team and in 1996 set a world record five-man team score average 8121 at the Visa cup.

Fucci is married to Rachel Hopkins and has a daughter (Sydney) and a son (Myles).