Steve Fisher. The name sounds familiar, doesn't it? It's one of those names that you know - but you just can't remember who it is. Go ahead, Google it. You'll probably find the pages of Steve Fisher, the white water rafter; Steve Fisher, the Texas folk singer; or Steve Fisher, the candidate for Congress; but not the Steve Fisher that I'm talking about. Let me give you a couple more hints: Fab Five, San Diego State, Ed Martin. Okay, fine, I'll tell you. Steve Fisher is the current head basketball coach of the San Diego State Aztecs and former head basketball coach of the Michigan Wolverines, most notably during the era of the Fab Five. But for those of you who were born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Steve Fisher's name may be unfamiliar. So how can a basketball coach with 412 career wins and a national title remain relatively unknown to the public? Maybe it's because of the overshadowing personalities of the players he recruits - think Jalen Rose, Chris Webber and Juwan Howard - or his laid-back coaching style. Known or unknown, Steve Fisher's road to redemption constitutes one of the best stories in college basketball.
Fisher's head coaching career began in 1989 at Michigan when then-head coach Bill Frieder left the Wolverines during the last week of the regular season to take a coaching vacancy at Arizona State. Fisher ended up winning the 1989 National Championship with the team that he inherited from Frieder, led by NBA great Glen Rice. After two more years at Michigan, Fisher amassed one of the greatest recruiting classes in basketball history by nabbing five highly touted freshmen commonly referred to as the "Fab Five." And if you were one of the 2,746,000 viewers who watched the ESPN documentary "The Fab Five" last week, then you already know the rest of the story. A couple of national championship losses, some more mediocre NCAA Tournament finishes and a NIT Championship summed up the next six years for Fisher. When a major recruiting scandal struck the Michigan basketball program in 1997, Michigan kicked Fisher to the curb and left the NCAA and NIT title-winning coach unemployed.
After a one-year stint as an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings, Fisher returned to the college coaching ranks to lead hapless San Diego State. When Fisher became head coach in 1999, the Aztecs had suffered losing seasons for 13 of the past 14 years and had not made a postseason appearance since 1985. Following a dismal 5-23 inaugural season at the helm of San Diego State which included a winless 0-14 conference record, Fisher brought the Aztecs to .500 record during his second year. During his third year, Fisher led the Aztecs to victory in the Mountain West Tournament and earned the team an automatic bid to its first NCAA Tournament in seventeen years.
Now fast-forward to the present. Fisher has the Aztecs in the Sweet 16 for the first time ever. He is the second winningest coach in San Diego State history and has the Aztecs in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for the first time since 1974. And with a No. 2 seed in the tournament, San Diego State is one of the favorites to win it all this year. So how has Fisher brought San Diego State to national prominence so quickly? It's simple, the same way he did it at Michigan - recruiting.
"I said, 'Why can't we be good?'" Fisher told GoAztecs.com before his first-round game against Northern Colorado. "I knew other coaches had been there, guys with r
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