Globetrotter excited for ‘next chapter’ after hoops
Kingston alum enters ‘next chapter’ after decade as Harlem Globetrotter
Tay Fisher had never heard of the Michael Keaton comedy, “Mr. Mom,” a film about a stay-at-home dad released in 1983 — three years before the Kingston High star was born.
After these past five months, though, Fisher can easily relate.
“Now, in 2020, you just can call me Mr. Dad.”
Last November, Fisher retired as “Firefly” after playing 10 years with the Harlem Globetrotters. After a decade of spending more than 200 days a year on the road, he is delighted to be at home with eight-month-old son Durand while wife Yasmin resumes her career as the Director of HEOP (Higher Education Opportunity Program) at Siena College.
“Fatherhood did make a difference with the decision, but I also just felt like it was time to move in a different direction,” he said. “I had been on the team for 10 years and that was always the goal of mine. I felt like a decade of playing basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters was a great milestone.
“I embrace it and it’s actually something I wanted to do,” Fisher said about fatherhood.
“Right now, he’s in the crawling stage. He’s already saying ‘Da-da.’ It’s been an amazing journey so far. The love that he shows me. The smile on his face when he sees me, when he hears my voice if I’m not around, is just amazing.
“My day job right now is taking care of my son. That is a big job. Fatherhood, for me, is something new. And I think I was ready for something new.”
Fisher left his mark both on and off the court at Kingston and Siena. He set school records his senior year as a Tiger with 61 points in a game and 705 for a season. His 2,119 career points are still a school and Section 9 record 16 years after he graduated. When he left, he was also the state leader in career (334) and single-season (102 in 200304) 3-pointers. He left Siena in 2008 second all-time in school history in 3-pointers made.
Fisher, who made an impact off the court with his various camps, clinics and programs in the area, became an international goodwill ambassador when he joined the Globetrotters.
“I had a great four years on the Kingston varsity, a great four years with Sienna, then I did a great 10 years of traveling with the Harlem Globetrotters,” he remarked. “Now I’m in another stage in my life.”
Fisher, only 33, is ready for the next step. He’s only actively retired as a Globetrotter and, as he said, “”I’ll always be a Globetrotter the rest of my life.”
“I am still Firefly: your nickname that they give you goes with how you are as a person and as a player. They called me Firefly because I light it up as soon as I get on the court with my shooting, dribbling and my smile. That was already me. That was the way I was when I was 13 years old,” he explained.
“Even if Firefly is no longer with the Harlem Globetrotters, Tay Fisher is still here. What I love about people in the community is that they never call me Firefly, because they all know me as Tay Fisher.”
The Tay Fisher Fundamental
Basketball Camp is still going strong 16 years after he began it barely out of high school. It now also offers coed camps. There are also shooting and dribbling clinics, a six-week preseason workout and one-onone training.
Fisher also sponsors a Christmas Clinic at the George Washington Elementary School in Kingston in December and a Fight 4 The Cure Breast Cancer Awareness Game at Kingston High in October. He is a motivational speaker at all levels and also has the T.A.Y. Anti-Bullying Prevention Program.
For more information on the programs, visit TayFisher.com
“The concentration now is my programs, the youth, myself, my family and just living my life,” he said. His programs give youngsters an edge Fisher never had. He didn’t play organized ball until he was a 13-yearold eighth-grader on the Tigers’ junior varsity squad. He was moved up to varsity the next season.
“I never played biddy league, never played CYO, never played modified, never played freshman. These kids now have so much more opportunity to get better,” he remarked. “Just having my basketball camp at the age of five years old where it starts, it gives them more opportunity than I had and I’m happy to be able to give that to them, because my goal is to make these kids better than myself.
“I’m still involved in the community, I still have my programs. I still have so many other things on the side that I’ve been doing. Before I even became a Globetrotter, I started my camps and my programs when I was 19 years old. As soon as I graduated from Kingston High School, I started my first basketball camp,” he said. “So that was before Firefly was even born. I was already doing that, so I was happy that I was able to still maintain those same programs and adding to them throughout my Siena and my Harlem Globetrotter career to still pick up on it when I’m done and know that it’s still there for me while at the same time having a wife who still wants to be great at what she does at life.”
Yasmin Fisher made national news when she started the first on-campus food pantry, the Community Hub Food Source, at Adirondack Community College. This was before food pantries on SUNY campuses became law.
The two met when Tay was a senior at Siena and Yasmin a sophomore, a friendship that eventually led to marriage in 2018 and the birth of Durand Quincy last June.
“I’ve always been a family-oriented person. My dad taught me that. When my family is good, I know that I’ll be good,” said Fisher, who has taken his son to a few Kingston games.
“I’ve never really put a basketball in front of his face until maybe a few weeks ago and he loves it. He hits it with his hand and it makes him smile.
“Thing is, I’ll still be able to spin that ball. Spinning that ball on my finger will always be, it was always the connection that I had around the world that I knew would make the kids smile,” he said. “If I spin that ball for him right now, he’s already smiling.. He has this smile on his face, because he’s fascinated by seeing a basketball and it’s spinning, so that right there already grabs his attention, like the entire world.”
Fisher, who earned a master’s in Childhood Education in post-graduate work at St. Rose in and around his Globetrotter
days, had always had a timetable in mind.
“I didn’t want to still be traveling the world at 40. I wanted to be able to enjoy that next part of life and figure out what else do I love to do other than traveling and playing in front of people and being on the Harlem Globetrotters,” he said, wanting to still embrace that goodwill role without wearing the Globetrotter’s patriotic colors.
“What I love to do is still very much like being a Harlem Globetrotter: it is putting smiles on people’s faces, changing people’s lives, playing the sport of basketball.,” Fisher said. “You have to be able to link to kids, you got to be able to teach at different levels, so I’m already heading into that field or heading into that direction whether I’m wearing the red, white and blue or not.”
Whether it is expanding his programs, becoming a teacher or something else, Fisher is excited about the future.
“This next chapter right now is a blank page and I’m the author,” he remarked.
It has been 25 years since Fisher started playing basketball and the journey has amazed and delighted him.
“I would never have thought that it would have taken me to this level,” he remarked. “More so, I would have never thought it would have made me the person I am now. It changed my life as a person.”