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Fisher’s basketball experience peaks with BG boys title

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Mar 16, 2021

Bishop Guertin boys basketball coach John Fisher celebrates with his players after the Cardinals captured the Division I title on Saturday night in Durham. (Courtesy photo by Jason Strniste/Bishop Guertin)

NASHUA – His dues were long since paid in full.

He’s had two stints now as the head coach at Bishop Guertin, and one at Alvirne.

He’s coached youth basketball, middle school/junior high basketball, and burst on the scene as Jim Domoracki’s assistant at Rivier University back in the early 1990s when the program was in its infancy.

But as a head coach, though, Saturday night’s Bishop Guertin Division I win over Winnacunnet of Hampton in Durham was John Fisher’s first championship as a head coach.

Yeah, it was special. Fisher’s other appearance in a high school championship game came when he guided the Broncos of Alvirne High School to the 2001 Class L finals, which resulted in a tough 51-48 loss.

But Saturday night, he was finally the guy in that post-game team photo, celebrating and holding up that title plaque.

“You can’t imagine,” he said. “If you watch the video, I was as happy as the kids. It’s a very unique feeling. But I was so happy. And to be happy for someone else is a greater happiness than you can for yourself.

“I was so happy for these kids, and what they accomplished. That’s what made me happy. Not happy for John Fisher. The kids won that title. To be happy for them, to be happy for the parents and our school. There’s no greater happiness than to be happy for someone else. There isn’t.”

And that’s why Fisher is so well-liked and respected around the area and the state in basketball coaching circles and beyond.

Time to go back several years, after Fisher had finished head coaching stints both at Alvirne and BG. That didn’t mean Fisher was leaving local basketball circles, that’s for sure.

“What a lot of people don’t know was after I coached Bishop Guertin the first time, Seth Garon helped me help out over at Alvirne, I got to coach them in the fall league and the summer league,” Fisher said. “I had some tremendous, tremendous athletes. And he let me scout during the year for him.”

Fisher would sneak over to Alvirne to help out after coaching his kids in the Nashua Junior Biddy program, “because I knew those guys. Alvirne let me hang around for a few years. That was really helpful.”

He also coached at Nashua Catholic with Bob Boissoneault, another former BG head coach, co-coaching a seventh grade championship win. Heck, he even worked with current BG girls coach Brad Kreick at the fourth and fifth grade level. “Brad and I became close friends, basketball confidants,” Fisher said, adding he also coached with another former Guertin head man, Al Francoeur, and then went back to Guertin to be part of that staff under Jim Migneault and with then-Cardinals (and current Broncos head coach) Marty Edwards after his kids began attending BG. He missed out on the 2011 title by one year.

“I owe a lot to a lot of people,” Fisher said.

And, of course, he was on the bench for a few years with former Cardinals head coach Matt Regan, who reluctantly gave up the job for family reasons and his own school administrative career. Fisher came forward and told the BG administration he’d be glad to take the head job again, and they took him up on his offer.

“My wife said I could,” Fisher said, but he was only half joking. He had intended to be Regan’s assistant for as long as Regan wanted the job. But he talked with his family and they agreed he should take the job.

“Matt and I still talk all the time,” Fisher said. “Matt would watch our games and send me his thoughts. When he stepped down, it was very sudden. I was not expecting it.”

Fisher didn’t want Guertin to promote him just because his kids had gone there and he had and was again coaching there.

“I threw my hat in the ring, and said ‘If this is something you’re interested in, I’m interested in it’,” Fisher said. “What’s going on with the school, what their goals are wih the kids is much more important than any personal ambition.”

It was a perfect fit.

“Let me tell you, I love coaching basketball more than anything,” Fisher said. “I love it, and I hope that comes through. But my higher intereste is what’s right.

“I’m really thankful (Guertin) gave me the opportunity. And I’m thankful these last two years, the players that we’ve had have embraced our chemistry.”

And Fisher says he won’t quit while he’s on top; Guertin may lose key seniors but he’s already looking ahead. He will return.

“Yesssss as long as I can,” he said. “I love it. I love what we have coming back next year in the program. There are a lot of unknowns. Who might apply (to the school) tomorrow?”

No one for the BG head boys basketball job, that’s for sure. Fisher says that the moments after the overtime regular season ending loss to North to the championship moment will stay with him forever.

“It will forever be burned in my mind,” he said. “I remember every minute, every word that the kids said out loud, every dive they made during practice, every time they said, ‘Geez, I should have done that better, I want to do this, this is what I’m supposed to do.'”

He is a better coach now, he says, than he was five years ago.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I’ve learned from every kid, from every coach. I’m a saver, I save paper, every book, my 3 by 5 cards, Tim Lunn (BG assistant) calls them the nucleur launch code. I save all that stuff, comments the kids say.

“That’s the stuff that makes you a better coach. I learned a lot from Matt Regan, a lot from Jim Domoracki, a lot from Jim Migneault, a lot from Marty Edwards, Brad Kreick. Anybody I’m around, I try to just learn and take that to the next day.”

And for John Fisher, the next days are always another opportunity, whether his basketball account is paid in full or not.

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