Chris Fur­rule ’94

BY LEIGH ANN COLEMAN ’09

Shortly after arriv­ing for foot­ball camp in the sum­mer of 1990, fresh­man defen­sive end Chris Fur­rule ’94 found him­self sit­ting in his dorm room with an injury won­der­ing what he was doing there. “Why not just go home and enjoy the rest of the sum­mer?” he thought. At that moment, Coach O’Neil burst through his door and told him to get back to prac­tice. What was prob­a­bly the scari­est pep talk Fur­rule had ever encoun­tered he later described as “the best thing that ever hap­pened to me.” He returned to prac­tices with the foot­ball team and quickly began to real­ize that Wes­ley Col­lege was the right place for him. Before long he got to know his fel­low stu­dents and sparked numer­ous friend­ships that remain strong today.

If it had not been for the encour­age­ment and sup­port of his coaches, Fur­rule might have given up on col­lege before he even started his first semes­ter. Head Coach Mike Drass took the time to get him enrolled in the work-study pro­gram. “Coach Drass def­i­nitely looked after me, took care of me, and we had a great rela­tion­ship. He was that father fig­ure on cam­pus,” said Furrule.

But the extra sup­port did not stop with the head coach alone. Coach Chip Knapp helped Fur­rule find work over the sum­mer with Children’s Choice. “That was great because I got to be a big brother to a lot of younger kids and hav­ing that job was a big help finan­cially,” he said. The rela­tion­ships he had with his coaches were invalu­able when­ever he was going through a chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence or hav­ing doubts. He added, “And this con­tin­ued long after I graduated.”

In his foot­ball career at Wes­ley, Fur­rule was named All-American, All– East­ern Col­lege Ath­letic Con­fer­ence (ECAC) and the Wolver­ines’ Most Improved Player and Defen­sive Player of the Year in 1993. He was the all-time leader in career quar­ter­back sacks when he grad­u­ated and still ranks in Wesley’s top five. Fur­rule was the only defen­sive line­man at the time to have had a sack, inter­cep­tion, tackle for a loss and fum­ble recov­ery in the same game and was even men­tioned in Sports Illus­trated for hav­ing done so.

In recog­ni­tion of his many grid­iron achieve­ments, Fur­rule was inducted last fall into the Wes­ley Col­lege Ath­letic Hall of Fame, which he con­sid­ers “a huge honor.” He remarks how far the foot­ball pro­gram has come since his days on the field. “They were ranked num­ber three this year—unbelievable. My first year we had the longest los­ing streak in the his­tory of foot­ball. I think 0–33 or some­thing,” said Fur­rule. “To see where [Wes­ley] foot­ball is today is excit­ing. I always like to say we started the new trend, because we were the first team to have a .500 win­ning record.”

Off the field, Fur­rule cred­its pro­fes­sors Tom Stur­gis and Lorena Stone for coach­ing him in the class­room, where he made the Dean’s List. “They were two peo­ple that spent a lot of time with me and got me through the tough times aca­d­e­m­i­cally,” he said. While study­ing ele­men­tary edu­ca­tion at Wes­ley, Fur­rule had hoped to become a teacher and coach.

At the top of his list of col­lege high­lights, Fur­rule cites the sense of fam­ily that Wes­ley pro­vided and the oppor­tu­nity to make life­long friends. The most sig­nif­i­cant of these was Dawn (Flana­gan) Fur­rule ’92, whom he mar­ried shortly after grad­u­a­tion. “The best part is that I met my wife there. I dated her the entire time I was at Wes­ley. She was a year older but she ended up stay­ing with me the year after she graduated.”

Today the cou­ple lives in New Jer­sey with their three children—Jake (14), Alexis (10) and McKen­zie (7). They are very active par­ents, attend­ing almost all of their children’s activ­i­ties includ­ing bas­ket­ball, soc­cer, soft­ball and dance recitals. Fur­rule even lends his time to coach­ing his daugh­ters’ teams. Their eldest son Jake has autism, and although it cre­ates an added chal­lenge to par­ent­hood, Fur­rule trea­sures his role to his fam­ily. “Being a father is fun. I enjoy every minute.” He and his son share a love for sports and they can nor­mally be found watch­ing a game together. In sup­port of Jake and other chil­dren with autism, Fur­rule is cre­at­ing an event called “Jog­ging for Jake,” a run/walk for autism in part­ner­ship with the South Jer­sey chap­ter of the Vari­ety Club. All pro­ceeds from the event, planned for April 2011, will go to the charity’s autism department.

A few years after leav­ing Wes­ley, Fur­rule decided to make a career switch. He was still inter­ested in edu­cat­ing oth­ers, but through a dif­fer­ent plat­form other than a classroom.

Now as the pres­i­dent of Cre­ative Finan­cial Group of New Jer­sey, he enlight­ens adults on their best invest­ments and finan­cial options for pro­tect­ing their fam­i­lies and gains much ful­fill­ment from his work. “It’s the sat­is­fac­tion you get when you’ve helped some­one retire and be finan­cially sta­ble, when you’ve helped them invest their money prop­erly and they thank you for it, when we give our clients the peace of mind that when they pass, sur­viv­ing fam­ily will be able to take care of themselves.”

Regarded as one of the top firms in Mon­mouth County, his com­pany was fea­tured in Forbes mag­a­zine in August. “It’s about the largest thing that has ever hap­pened to us,” he said.

Dawn, Alexis, Chris, McKen­zie and Jake Furrule

In addi­tion to truly enjoy­ing the finan­cial plan­ning indus­try, Fur­rule also gains a strong sense of sat­is­fac­tion as a busi­ness owner and leader. “There are so many peo­ple that come to work for me, and whether they are young kids right out of school or they are career chang­ers, I love to watch their careers grow and I take pride in the suc­cess of us all,” he said.

He still lives by the idea of build­ing an extended fam­ily, and his giv­ing spirit reaches beyond the office walls as well. Around the hol­i­days, his team sup­ports five fam­i­lies by pro­vid­ing their Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas din­ners as well as toys for the chil­dren. He and his col­leagues also vol­un­teer at a local nurs­ing home on Tues­days. The Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Mon­mouth County, one of the largest char­i­ties that Cre­ative Finan­cial Group sup­ports, recently pre­sented Fur­rule with its Phil­an­thropy Award. “To win that award this year was really big for us. We put a lot of time into giv­ing back to the community.”

Fur­rule con­sid­ers him­self lucky, not only to have a very sup­port­ive wife and three won­der­ful chil­dren, but also to have held onto the many friend­ships that began back in his Wes­ley Col­lege days. The same coaches who would not let him give up as a stu­dent call him and his friends back together every year, keep­ing the Wes­ley foot­ball fam­ily together. He and his fel­low Wolver­ines still talk on a reg­u­lar basis and have shared expe­ri­ences as their kids have grown up together. Fur­rule says many have been there to help him start up what is now a suc­cess­ful busi­ness. “We all kept the friend­ships going, but a lot of it is because of the coaches and how they keep every­body together and con­stantly keep us in con­tact with one another.”

Reflect­ing back on the turn­ing point he faced on that day in his dorm room 20 years ago, Fur­rule now real­izes how a coach and men­tor can make all the dif­fer­ence in how your life will turn out. “I’m happy and proud that I went to Wes­ley. I prob­a­bly wouldn’t be here or as hap­pily mar­ried if I went some­where else. I never would have got­ten this life, I never would have met these great friends, and I prob­a­bly wouldn’t be in this career. Wes­ley helped all that happen.”