Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: 10 Things to Know About Paddy Fisher
10/4/2017 3:33:00 PM | Football
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Ten things to know about Paddy Fisher, the redshirt first-year middle linebacker whose 37 tackles are best among the 'Cats and the most by any first-year player in the country. . . .
1. He hails from the tiny Texas town of Katy, population 14,102. The Bengal quarterback Andy Dalton was also born there, and that is true too of the actress Renee Zellweger, and the place itself could come out of central casting for Friday Night Lights. "Football in Katy, it's a lifestyle there. We eat, sleep and dream about football," Fisher explains. "I could tell you, before I was even in kindergarten I was playing football. We would play in an organized youth league, play some flag football. I started strapping on the pads in the second or third grade. It's a lifestyle down there. It's everything we work for and love."
2. They most love their Katy High School Tigers, who in Fisher's senior season of 2015 pitched 10 shutouts, surrendered just 62 points in 16 games and were undefeated state and national champions. This is a lunch-bucket, blue-collar program, a program that conditions strenuously and practices early and eschews the fancy-pants do-dads of this space age. "We've got a lot of old-fashioned stuff," Fisher says. "Katy's an old program based on tradition. We're a gritty program. We like to stick to what we know best. And stick to what works and helps us get success. That's how they did it back in the day, and that's how they do it now."
3. This explains why Fisher figuratively shrugged when faced with the exertions and demands he encountered upon joining the 'Cats, who are led by a coach who himself is a lunch-bucket, blue-collar type of guy. "It prepared me a lot," he says of what he went through at home. "Katy is very-well structured and very close, fundamentally, to a college program. So when I came here, nothing was new. Everything that I did at Katy was done here. Obviously I had to adapt to the speed of the game, the speed of practice and stuff. But offseason workouts and practice structure were identical to here. Everything was the same, which put me a step ahead."
4. Here is just how deep the parallels go. Before each game, as they trot onto the field, the 'Cats tap a two-by-four emblazoned with the encouragement, "Trust Yourself." Back in Katy, after bursting through a giant poster before each game, the Tigers take one of their own and throw him in the air and collectively catch him. "That's a little tradition before a game to build trust," explains Fisher. "We're all there to catch our teammates. When they fall, we're there to pick them up and we're there to embrace them."
5. Still, despite these parallels and those advantages, Fisher redshirted a season ago. This was the first time in forever that he was not playing games in the fall and, not surprisingly, that was not easy. "It was hard at first. That's when I really got, I got homesick," he admits. "I was redshirted. We lost a few games early in the year, and I was just sitting on the sidelines. I couldn't do anything to help. I wasn't playing. Football is so close to me, I really got homesick. So I had to bite the bullet and just do what I could do on the scout team, and trust the process, trust the development. I needed to develop as a player, physically, mentally and emotionally. That's what that redshirt year did. I'm thankful for that. It was good."
6. It was good that he had the chance to experience the rhythms of college practices, good too that he had the time to learn how to balance the demands of the field and the classroom. Also good was the presence of an accomplished tutor like Anthony Walker, Jr., the middle linebacker who now toils on Sundays for the Indianapolis Colts. "I learned a lot fundamentally from Anthony," Fisher says. "Anthony was a really good fundamental guy with his footwork and his steps and his reads. He was one of the smartest linebackers I've ever been close to. Reaction wise and Instinct wise he's amazing. I think that's what we both share. Instincts. But what I learned was footwork, and what to do on certain plays, certain reads, and how to take on blocks a certain way. Little things like that. . . . He really took me under his wing. He was my Big Brother in the mentoring program, and off the field he really showed me this is what you've got to do, this is how you've got to work. He really, really guided me through the process."
7. He was not performing on Saturdays, and so he was invisible to the public eye. But the 'Cats noticed him. "Everyone knew last year he was going to be a pretty good player for us," the quarterback Clayton Thorson said late last month. "So he's ready. He's just got to go do what he's always done, and he'll be fine. He's ready to go."
"I saw a quick maturity, similar to Anthony Walker," the safety Kyle Queiro added when asked about Thorson's observation. "When a spot becomes vacant, owning the moment for sure and trying to get the most out of it."
"He's played outstanding football for us," Pat Fitzgerald finally said at his most-recent Monday presser. "He pops off the video. There's no doubt about that."
8. Still, as he prepares for Penn State's Saturday visit to Ryan Field, he is just four games into his college career, and yet adjusting and adapting to his new environment. "I look back at my early years in high school, and I look right now at my early years in college, and I see so many similarities," he says. "It's crazy that history is kind of repeating itself. All I'm doing is just working hard, and sticking to the script, and letting everything play out."
Can he play freely yet, or must he still think out there?
"I still do think a lot," he admits. "And I notice that when I think more than I need to, things tend to get unsynchronized. So we're still working on the repetitiveness to where it becomes muscle memory. We're taking steps every day. It's looking good. We're getting there."
9. Fitzgerald has said that, often, the hardest thing for a young player to learn is just how hard it is to succeed at the Big Ten level. "That has not been an issue," Fisher avows. "But it definitely has been harder that I thought. You've got academics here that are extremely challenging. You've got a Big Ten football program— you saw last Saturday that it's not easy to win in the Big Ten. He (Fitzgerald) tells us that every week. Back in high school, we weren't challenged as hard academically as we are here. And in high school football, we'd go in knowing we'd win every game. We were that powerhouse program in Texas, in the nation. So we went in knowing, 'We're going to run this team out of here.' It's a whole different ball game at the next level, Division I football. Especially in the Big Ten, you've got to come prepared and ready to play every game. It's a lot harder."
10. Back when he was growing up, and playing in Katy Youth Football, one of Fisher's coaches was his dad Steven, who was also a member of that group's board. But in the second half of 2009 the father learned he had stage four pancreatic cancer and on Feb. 1 of 2010, just 10 days after his son's 12th birthday, he died at the age of 46. 'It was," Paddy Fisher says now, "extremely hard being at that young age, and not understanding what this disease is, and why it's so dangerous, and why there are all these medicines that may or may not work. At a young age, you're just confused and asking why.
"I learned a lot about myself through that time, learned a lot about my faith. His passing has really been the motive for my hard work. The fuel to my fire."
