Fournier Working Hard at Endicott

Nicole Fournier graduated from Milford High School in 2010. While a Hawk she played four years of soccer and softball, as well as three years of basketball. During her senior year she was captain of both the soccer and softball teams for Milford High. During her time at Milford, Fournier participated in the National Honor Society and Spanish National Honor Society, was named a Central Mass All-Star during the 2008-09 season and also earned the Wendy’s High School Heisman award her senior year.

When it came time to decide where she wanted to go, Fournier chose Endicott College in Beverly as her destination to play soccer and pursue an education in athletic training. Though Fournier didn’t see as much time as she did in high school she made an impact on the 17-7-2 Gulls as she played in all 19 games scoring two goals and grabbing an assist. Fournier plans to continue to contribute to the team in the future as the Gulls will be graduating five seniors.

Fournier is happy to be playing at Endicott, and says that she couldn’t have gotten there without the support of her mother and father, along with her best friend, Erica Dunton, and her boyfriend of four-plus years, Brett. In her down time she can be found listening to music, drawing, spending her time outside and enjoying the beaches on the North Shore.

Favorite food: French fries with ketchup

Favorite movie: Taken

Favorite professional or collegiate team: I’ve always loved the Patriots. I love football. I always wished I could play.

Do you have a favorite athlete or role model? I usually look up to people who I play with, not necessarily professionals, but I will look up to someone I played with and fight to be just as good as them.

What’s on your iPod right now? A lot of country music and John Mayer.

What have you been up to since graduating from Milford High School in 2010?

I’ve been focusing a lot on school [at Endicott] and my major is athletic training. It's one of the harder majors here. I’m also on the college’s soccer team. It’s been hard. I’m always busy and I’m barely in the [dorm] room because I have a lot of work to do. I’ve been doing a lot of athletic training hours, working with the athletic trainers here and going out to the men’s lacrosse practices and baseball practices. At least that’s what I do in the spring time, as well as play the spring season of soccer, so there’s a lot going on. In the fall, I have practice every day and games two to three days a week, so it’s been pretty good. I’m also a SAAC member, which is a club that has a representative from each sports team here.

What are you looking to study at Endicott and how did you become interested in the major?

I was very unsure what I wanted to do until during preseason this year my knees started to hurt and I went to the training room. They had kind of diagnosed me with patella tendinitis, so I was there a lot doing exercises and I found an interest in the athletic trainers and I loved what they were doing and how much knowledge they knew about the muscles and the bones. I was very interested in it, and with my love for sports, I just thought it would be a perfect fit for me. So far, it is a struggle, but I’m working hard to stay with it and keep up with it, but I really love it a lot.

What was the biggest transition you had to make from playing high school soccer to playing soccer in college?

I would say the biggest transition is playing time. It’s just very different with a new team, there are a bunch of new girls—where in high school you’re playing with girls you’ve known since you were 5-years-old. Just being in college, everything is new and it was hard for me to adjust, but over the past few weeks during the spring season I felt better about relationships with teammates and I feel so much more comfortable. It’s been a good experience.

I saw that you scored your first collegiate goal against Nichols College, how did that feel?

It was awesome. Scoring that goal brought me back to high school and how I felt whenever I scored and I want to keep doing that. That feeling of putting the ball in the back of the net was awesome, and that’s what I want to do for the team in the future, so it was a great feeling.

What made you choose Endicott College in the first place and what other schools were you looking into attending?

I took a lot of things into consideration: I did some research, I looked at the location and I knew I didn’t want to go very far—an hour would be perfect. There’s actually no one from Milford here at all and when I was looking at what they had as far as majors go—because I was undecided— they had a lot of different things that I could choose from, that I could see myself doing.

I did research on the soccer team as well and I was very impressed, so I came up to visit and the appearance and the atmosphere just made things much better. The people are all friendly and everything just kind of all fell into place. I don’t remember what exactly made me come here, but I just had this feeling like, ‘I think I love Endicott.’

I also looked into Merrimack, Assumption, Roger Williams and Johnson and Wales.

Can you talk about your Milford High School experience and if you have any favorite moments from your time there.

I always think about my high school experiences as my favorite times, you always have your memories in your head and you always think of the ones that are the most exciting and amazing. My senior year, both senior year games against Algonquin and Shrewsbury are my favorites. Against Algonquin, it was a 1-1 game—and I think I scored the first goal off a throw in, as I headed it into the corner of the net—and it was the last 10 seconds of the game and the ball was thrown in and I knocked it in with my head again for the win. Everyone just went crazy and it was one of those things I’ll always remember.

Also, the Shrewsbury game where I scored the first two goals, and specifically, just that second goal, the way it felt scoring against such a big team, I just felt like I had made an impact. So those were my favorite moments I think of all the time, but other than that, I loved every minute of it.