700 Club: Bob Fisher nears an exclusive milestone
Basketball coach, 81, shows no signs of slowing down
There is no man more synonymous with high school basketball in Eastern Massachusetts than Bob Fisher.
Over the span of six decades, Fisher has patrolled the sidelines at three different schools. He has won a pair of state championships, reached Eastern Mass. and sectional finals, and witnessed up close some of the premier players to step foot in the Commonwealth. Now in the midst of his 43rd season, Marshfield’s Fisher is a dozen wins away from becoming just the second boys coach in Massachusetts high school basketball history to amass 700 wins.
“It’s been quite the ride and I am still loving every moment of it each and every day,” Fisher said.
Fisher went to Quincy High School and then Bentley University where in the early 1960s he helped found the Falcons’ athletic program. He played for four years, was an assistant coach at Bentley while getting his masters, and grabbed a teaching job in Bridgewater-Raynham. Then, in 1966, he began at Rockland as the school’s varsity baseball and assistant basketball coach under Scott MacKinlay. He took over the basketball reins in 1969.
“What I remember the most was my youthfulness and energy,” Fisher said. “I was teaching so I was in the classroom with the kids who I was able to connect with right off the bat.”
Almost instantly, Fisher’s
Bulldogs became known for their fire. Fisher translated his playing days on the outdoor courts in Quincy growing up into a coaching style. His teams full-court pressured, attacked, punished, and wore down opponents. He showed his players what it meant to get after it via his own ability to mix in with practices.
“Fish instilled everything in you that was important,” Keith Dickson, who graduated from Rockland in 1975, said. “He was such a great motivator. I haven’t been back to Rockland since 1975 but I always tell people, ‘you can take me out of Rockland but you cannot take the Rockland out of me.’”
The only coach in Massachusetts with more victories is Bob Foley, but Fisher holds the ultimate bragging rights. Fisher’s first state championship came in 1972 when Rockland defeated Foley’s St. Peter-Marian group 85-81 at WPI. It’s the only meeting between the two winningest coaches in state history.
Fisher coached six more seasons that included a trip to the Eastern Mass. Finals in 1975 and Sectional Finals in 1978 before stepping away to become the school’s athletic director in 1979. He returned to the sideline in 1988 when the Rockland district allowed him to man both positions before taking another absence in 1994 for three years to watch his kids play at Marshfield.
Through the combined 12 years away from the bench, the game underwent changes including most notably in the early 80s the incorporation of the three-point line. Fisher stayed connected as the MIAA’s South Tournament Director in the 80s while also coaching his son’s youth and travel teams through the mid-90s.
“I was able to watch my kids grow which mattered so much to me as there was no chance I was going to coach against them,” Fisher said. “In both instances the school allowed me to return and coach which I am so thankful for, and in both instances I was so encouraged and excited to get back.”
His final stint at Rockland was as successful as his first. In 1998 his team went 24-0 before falling to Weston in the Eastern Mass. Finals. In 2004, Fisher captured his second state championship. Led by star Joe Coppens the Bulldogs went on a magical run that included knocking off Lynn Tech and Springfield Commerce. The architect of the Bulldogs nearly four decades worth of success had seen and done it all.
He was ready to give it up.
“We just had won the state title and I thought it was all over with,” Fisher said. “I was done coaching at Rockland. I was done be- ing the athletic director.
That was it. And then Eddie Miller at Quincy called me while I was sitting on a beach in Florida.”
Fisher took over his hometown Presidents in the fall of 2004 and saw instant success winning the Old Colony League a year after the program secured just one victory. His style of full court pressure stayed true to its roots but elsewhere he made adjustments. He sprinkled in some zone and
allowed greater opportunity for creativity in his offense. Kids were becoming more athletic and dynamic. Doug Scott, who notably scored 53 points in a game at Quincy, was a prime example.
“When I first started it was my way or the highway. Everything was systems-based,” Fisher said. “Over time, though, I’ve realized you can have the foundation but you cannot ruin a kid’s creativity as a player. You have to let them do their magic on the court. It’s good and it makes good things happen.”
Fisher had no intention of leaving Quincy until following the 2008 season when it was announced the school would join the Patriot League, making them an immediate foe of Rockland. It was a deal-breaker to coach against his former team.
“I refused to go on the opposite bench in that gym where I had started my basketball family,” Fisher said. “That’s where my life really started. We won two state titles there. Hundreds of games. Those players were and are my family. I would not compete against them. No way.”
Ever since, Fisher has been the head coach at Marshfield. Former Rams athletic director Lou Silva hired Fisher after former coach Scott Madden stepped down. In each of his 16 seasons Fisher has led the Rams to the state tournament including a 19-win season in 2011 and a Patriot League Keenan championship in 2022. The other division in the Patriot League is named after him.
One of his sons, Brian, is the girls coach at Hanover. He has been at the center of three of Eastern Massachusetts’ most notable rivalries, watching up close as Rockland and Abington traded blows, thousands packed the gym to witness Quincy’s two neighboring schools, and the Rams and Duxbury go for bragging rights.
At 81 years old, Fisher holds a career record of 687219. His energy is the same as it has always been. Fisher finds value in his connectivity with his players. He has gone to see Dickson — now the head men’s coach at Saint Anselm’s — compete on multiple occasions and taken a pair of trips to see former players partake in space launches. They are his story.
The tenacity his players showcase on the court nearly 57 years after he started coaching remains a reflection of their leader. While the uniforms may have changed, his team’s identity remains.
“He made us more than we probably should have been,” Dickson said. “His wife, Jane, has been by his side every step of the way. You cannot do it for this long without someone as supportive there that he has in her. She has helped him become the man he is, and we’re all lucky to have been coached by Fish but also to have met her.”
Like any coach who has been around for decades, Fisher gets the question regularly — ‘Is this your last year?’ If passion and success is any indication, do not hold your breath. His teams have qualified for the state tournament in each of his 42 seasons as head coach.
“Kids keep me young. My love for the game is still as strong as ever. I do not jump up and down like I used to, but I am blessed with energy,” Fisher said. “When you lose that spark, that’s when it’s time.”