Fisher joins brother in CVC coaching ranks
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Jeff Fisher went into his senior year of high school with high expectations on the soccer field and the baseball field.
But a severe knee injury suffered in the first scrimmage of the soccer season changed all that. And while Fisher lost his senior year on the field at West Windsor-Plainsboro High South, he got an early start on his future.
”Coaching is something I knew I wanted to get into even then” recalls Fisher, who begins this season with his first full-time head coaching job as the boys soccer coach at Robbinsville. “When I blew my knee out and was on the sidelines, I knew I wanted to coach. I missed the soccer season and in baseball I was able to pitch that senior year. But it was tough in the beginning.
”In the first pre-season game against Pennington I went down. We had big expectations my senior year. We returned 54 goals with me and Alex Wesson and we had Victor Martinez who came over from Princeton and scored goals. So we had a lot of offense. John Hatcher was a big assist guy.”
Fisher didn’t get to play that season, but the groundwork was laid for his future. He spent a year at Elizabethtown College but was still recovering from the knee injury and never played there. He then spent two years at Mercer County Community College before moving on to Kean University.
After college he got right into coaching and teaching, which were goals he had set for himself. On the soccer field his first year he volunteered at WW-P South under Brian Welsh and then coached the Pirates’ freshman and JV teams before heading to Robbinsville. He spent 2012 as the freshman coach and last year started as the varsity assistant before taking over as the interim head coach.
On the basketball court he helped coach the freshman at WW-P South as volunteer with his brother, Bryan, and has spent the last two years coaching the freshmen at Robbinsville. He’s been the baseball varsity assistant at Robbinsville the last two years and also coached lacrosse at Grover Middle School.
Now he gets his first full-time shot as a head coach and few could be more prepared.
”Going into this year it is my first year coming in running preseason after having done an offseason in summer and winter,” Fisher said. “So I am taking it as my first year. It wasn’t ideal last year but it was an opportunity to coach varsity and plant seed a little bit.”
Fisher is a Social Studies teacher at Robbinsville and is part of a teaching and coaching family. His mother, Leslie, is a long-time educator, while Bryan is a teacher and coach at WW-P South and his sister, Megan, teaches in South Brunswick.
”I have had some of the best mentors I could ask for,” Fisher said. “Playing for Welsh in high school and coaching with him and the passion he has, And coaching with my brother was a great experience. And of course playing for coach (Charlie) Inverso at Mercer was a great experience. I consider him one of the best in any area in any sport. He is that good. He has been someone to lean on and has been very helpful for me.
”I coached with Bob Schurtz and got to see how he turned that program around. And Mr. (Don) Hutchinson at South and the way he coaches. And working with Tom Brettell at Robbinsville, I get to pick their brains and mold it into my own style.”
Fisher is looking forward to turning the Robbinsville soccer program into something special. And he’ll get a second chance to coach against his brother, who got the best of him in last year’s matchup.
”I am definitely excited for this season,” Fisher said. “It will be fun to play South. We have them late in the season. We played last year they beat us, 3-0. That was the ‘Fish Bowl’ I think they called it.
”I feel fortunate where I am right now. I feel lucky. The school is great not only for academics, but the athletics as well. Hopefully we can have the same kind of success the school has had in baseball and softball.”