Anderson Fuhrer learned a tough lesson when he first competed in a national-level climbing competition four years ago.
When participating in local and regional competitions in the Midwest, the Naperville 18-year-old could easily climb his way to the top through strength and endurance alone, he said. But that would not be enough to win at the national level.
“At the national level, it’s a lot more complex,” Fuhrer said. “It’s a lot more like problem solving on the wall rather than just being able to be strong and pull through.”
That effort yielded results when he took second place at this year’s USA Climbing Youth Nationals in Portland, Oregon, and earned a spot on the U.S. Youth National Team when it competes in the International Federation of Sport Climbing Youth World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, during the last week of July.
“It definitely took some time to sink in because I’ve been dreaming about this for so long,” Fuhrer said. “But once it sunk in, I was very relieved that the hard work paid off.”
The road to get to the national team has not been easy. Fuhrer has been climbing any wall he can get his hands on, including some at gyms in Chicago and Arlington Heights and others as far away as Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota, he said. He even has a home wall in his room built by his dad and his dad’s friend.
“I think he’s the most driven athlete I’ve ever seen in terms of his work ethic, but he’s also independent in the sense that he really knows his own body,” said Connor Druhan, Fuhrer’s coach. “I don’t need to sort of helicopter and be right over his shoulder the whole time. I can trust him to go off on his own and do his own training.”
Fuhrer, who graduated from Naperville Central High School in May, said he fell in love with climbing when he tried it at a birthday party in elementary school. He begged his parents to take him back to a climbing gym.
“We had a day off. My daughter was with my husband at the swimming pool,” said Susan Fuhrer, Anderson’s mother. “I’m like, ‘We have the day off, what do you want to do?’ He’s like, ‘I want to go climbing. I love climbing.’ I’m like, ‘OK, where do we even climb in Naperville?’”
A quick Google search sent them to the climbing wall at the Life Time fitness facility in Warrenville.
“When I first saw the wall at Life Time, I was just amazed at how big it was, even though it really wasn’t that big, but it just looked like a giant playground,” Fuhrer said. “I was never afraid of heights or anything like that so as soon as I could get on the rope and just keep going higher, I was having a blast.”
Within six months, he completed three levels of classes. A coach at Life Time took notice.
“He basically said, ‘I think your son’s really good at this, and he probably should go somewhere outside of Life Time,’” Susan Fuhrer said. “There’s nothing really close to Naperville so we started going to Vertical Endeavors in Glendale Heights. And so he tried out for the team and got onto the team when he was 10.”
When he started with the group, he realized he was not as good as he thought he was, he said. There were team members there who started climbing a lot earlier than he did, and he knew he would need to practice consistently to improve, he said
Initially Fuhrer was both climbing and playing football while at Naperville Central, but decided he needed to commit to one if he really wanted to go to the next level.
“He really, really loved football, and he loved being with the team,” Susan Fuhrer said. “He played with the same boys all through middle school, then freshman year, sophomore year. It was just kind of a big decision. … I was kind of nervous about him not being connected to Naperville Central anymore but obviously it was the right choice.”
This fall Fuhrer is headed to the University of Utah, where he plans to study kinesiology while competing as part of the school’s climbing team.
In his free time before school starts, Fuhrer has been coaching younger climbers at ABC Climbing Academy in Naperville, which opened in June.
“It’s been awesome to see first-time kids come in and try climbing because I kind of (see) myself in a lot of them,” Fuhrer said.