Coach Jen Fisher took over the Colorado State dugout 15 years ago, and the Rams haven’t looked back since.
Fisher took over as the head coach for CSU softball all the way back in 2010 when she left her role as coach Metropolitan State University of Denver. Ever since then, she has become one of the most successful coaches in CSU Athletics history. In her time at CSU, Fisher racked up the most wins in program history with 349. On top of that, she has two Mountain West Coach of the Year awards and a conference regular season championship.
Fisher has coached softball at almost every level, from club with the Fort Collins Buckaroos and high school with Rocky Mountain High School and Poudre High School to college with Otero Junior College, MSU and CSU.
At every level, Fisher has been a winner. She won seven consecutive Region IX championships and Coach of the Year awards with Otero JC. At Metro, she won two RMAC Coach of the Year awards and won NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year in 2010 when she led the recently reformed Metro softball team to 53-6 record and a postseason appearance — the best season in program history.
One of the most important things for Fisher is her tie to Fort Collins.
Fisher grew up in Fort Collins while her father, Wayne Schubert, worked at CSU as a professor of atmospheric sciences. She attended Rocky Mountain High School and then committed to Creighton to play softball but transferred to Colorado School of Mines after one year.
Fisher then came to CSU, where she received her bachelor’s in mathematics. She even met her husband, Joe Fisher, at CSU, where he played baseball. Her son, Garrett Fisher, also was born in Fort Collins and attended high school at Rocky Mountain. He is now a coach for CSU softball, working alongside his mother. Her love for CSU and the city of Fort Collins is one of her favorite parts about coaching at CSU.
“It was an absolute shocker, dream come true — one of the best jobs that I could ever hope to have,” Jen Fisher said. “It doesn’t feel like work if you get to do softball all day, every day. It’s been great. Of course, my family’s very supportive, and lot of sports fans and family around here … have supported me.”
Jen Fisher’s support from the community isn’t one-sided. Throughout the years, she’s used her role as a leader to help the community. Even going back to her time at MSU, she has assisted in organizing events. In 2009, the MSU softball team hosted a fundraiser 5K race for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Jen Fisher received a community engagement award from the NCAA for her work with the Denver West High School softball team. Her team helped Denver West with academic and personal life matters.
“Our teams have always understood the importance of being someone that’s looked up to,” Jen Fisher said. “There’s someone watching you and watching how you react and how you behave. When you engage with the community, it helps you not take the sport as life and death. (It’s) because you see people going through experiences that are much harder and more difficult than what you’re going through. We’ve always tried to make sure that our student athletes have a healthy dose of awareness of the community around them.”
A constant for CSU softball is the appearance of the community.
Before most games, the team takes time to show their appreciation and make people’s days special and memorable, doing everything from bringing youth softball teams onto the field for the national anthem to honoring teachers and professors for their hard work.
“We had our most valuable professor game the other night, and I think that’s another thing we’ve really tried to help our athletes understand, is that the way you represent yourself in class ties in,” Jen Fisher said. “We once had a professor that wrote a thank you note to the athletic director and said he brought his twin daughters to the game, and he hoped that they would grow up to be just like his students who was one of our athletes, and that was really powerful.”
One of the most impressive things about Jen Fisher’s coaching style is not just the way she trains players but also the emphasis she places on players’ academic success.
Since her first year at CSU in 2011, 131 Academic All-Mountain West nominations have been given to CSU softball. Almost every year, the team has about 10 players named to the list. Not only do her players get academic awards, but even her son, Garrett Fisher, was given three all-academic awards while playing baseball for Northern Colorado.
“There’s a lot of carryover of wanting to learn,” Garrett Fisher said. “There’s a lot you can learn in baseball and softball. Studying the game, learning the game, there’s a lot of carryover through that. I think being the most educated or the smartest team a lot of time (can help) you a lot in knowing what we want to do in this situation, where we want the ball to go (and) what we need out of our hitter. I think that all ties together.”
CSU softball has made leaps and bounds of progress in the 15 years since Jen Fisher took over, going from a team that couldn’t even play or practice at night due to not having lights to a team with a brand-new stadium and a solid foundation for years to come.
“Those players really wanted to improve the program, and especially in my second year, we went from not being very good to a really huge turnaround,” Jen Fisher said. “We’ve been able to sustain some pretty good success in a tough conference, and I think it’s just been exciting to see the new stadium and more … for all the fans because they’re really excited about it. They love the night games and all the support staff. I just fought for it.”
Reach Alex Graser at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter at @AlexGraser5354.
