This 2024 Swish League Pro-Am has given us here at Sons of Montezuma a wonderful opportunity to showcase San Diego’s basketball talent. From college, to professionals players, Swish brings together young and old alike to celebrate the great game that America’s finest city has come to embrace.
A large reason for this love affair in San Diego has been the emergence of San Diego State’s basketball program on the National stage. Often times we’ve heard the SDSU staff quote the phrase, a rising tide lifts all boats—usually in reference to their guys playing more unselfishly with each other, to gain team success over individual stats.
Since the Aztecs decades of success and National Championship appearance two seasons ago, much more passion has been visually obvious when it comes to the surrounding basketball programs in the San Diego County area. From Point Loma Nazerine’s successes, to UCSD making the jump to D1 status in the Big West Conference, it’s what I like to call, the AZTEC effect.
I would like to also give a fair amount of this credit for getting the ball rolling, to our very own SDSU legend, Steve Fisher. With his 18 years as head coach of the Aztecs, Fisher provided not only great success, but consistency, as well as longevity—Something this city sorely needed after not one, but two NBA franchises packed up and left town.
“For 50 years I’ve lived my dream of being a teacher and that’s what coaching is. To end my professional career in San Diego at San Diego State, has been truly a blessing. We love living here we love being a part of the community and a part of the fabric of San Diego State.“
Sons of Montezuma was blessed to have a sit down court-side chat with the basketball legend coach Steve Fisher this past weekend. Fisher was on hand at the Swish league to promote and spread awareness of Athletes vs ALS, in an effort to find a cure for the disease.
“We’ve had a program thats been consistent with the people. When Dutch and I came down in 1999 Matt Soria was a young grad student—he’s still there. Dave Velasquez came a year or two later—he’s still there. Mark Fisher came in—he’s still there. So we have people with longevity. So players that have come and graduated, they come back. They want to come back. They know that people care.“
And that is exactly the same spirit that you will find at the Swish League. Dedicated founders that cross into so many facets of the San Diego’s basketball scene from North County to Southeast San Diego, to the center of the city.
In their sixth full summer pro-am season and second at Lincoln High school, the Swish League has long been supporters of both Coach Fisher and the ALS foundation. On each Swish League team’s uniform can prominently be seen the ALS letters proudly displayed for each player to represent.
That visibility is exactly what Coach Fisher believes we need more of in order to eventually find the cure and defeat the debilitating disease. A disease that has hit home personally for the Fisher family when son and current SDSU assistant coach Mark was diagnosed over a decade ago.
“What we need to continue to do is grow the awareness, that ALS is a disease that is underfunded, under-researched—that is starting to get more involvement for a whole lot of reasons. Now, we’re in a stage where pharmaceuticals and doctors are involved.”
“Part of it is from a selfish standpoint, pharmaceuticals now say there are more and more people living with ALS. Before 2 or 3 years and you weren’t with us anymore. There are things now that can prolong your life. And now we need to get a cure, that’s the next step. There’s a lot of things in the pipeline and we need our public to be aware.”
“The ALS Walk that we have in October every year raises a tremendous amount of money and families are involved. Our players not just basketball, but football and other athletes get involved in that Sunday morning walk with pride.“ “
“Eventually we will find a cure, things like this at the Swish League and ALS weekend, keep the fight going.” -Steve Fisher
For Steve Fisher being an advocate has always been a part of his DNA. His younger sister Maria, was born with down syndrome in a time where those kind of special needs were preferred to be put out of public sight.
Fisher recounted with us just how his mother was a strong leader for making sure his sister was raised with the same attention, resources, and love that they all received.
“Now, I’m a care giver and always have been, but now that I’ve been retired for 7 years, I would say that’s my primary job. I’m there to offer support for Mark, his wife Jill, their boy Max. Others don’t have the luxury to of someone else coming in. Every dollar you give goes to ALS, both research and caregiving.”
Watch the full interview below to learn more about our court-side chat with the legend Steve Fisher
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