The list of Jewish head football coaches at the professional and collegiate level is not long.
There was Al Cornsweet, a player-coach for the Cleveland Indians (yes, the football team) in 1931, who, though Jewish, reportedly dabbled in Scientology.
There was Allie Sherman, a two-time NFL coach of the year, who nonetheless lost three straight NFL Championship games with the Giants from 1960-62.
More recently, there was Buffalo Bills legend Marv Levy and former Chicago Bears head coach Marc Trestman and Tony Levine, who guided the Houston Cougars from 2011-14 before switching careers. He now owns a Chick-Fil-A.
And, of course, there's Jedd Fisch.
What is a sweet Jewish boy from Livingston, New Jersey, doing in Tucson, of all places?
Go ahead and ask Fisch — or ask me, for that matter.
After all, it was a little strange discovering that Fisch and I were born in the same hospital — Saint Barnabas Medical Center — not quite eight years apart, 2,388 miles away from Tucson. In Yiddish, they call it kismet.
Livingston isn't exactly a football factory, after all. It’s about as far from the fertile fields of Texas as they come. Livingston produces lawyers and dentists, not coaches. The most famous football player from Livingston might just be Stan Yagiello, who played for the powerhouse that is William & Mary.
We’re talking blintzes, not blitzes, in Livingston. Literally anything but the pigskin.
No, the town is more likely to foster young golfers or tennis players.
And that’s how we get to Jedd Fisch.
Born to a psychologist for a mother and a lawyer for a father, Fisch took after his dad, a collegiate tennis player. Fisch became a tennis star himself, all state, even.
But his parents divorced when he was young, and his mother started dating a high school football coach, Bill Roca, a state champion. Eventually, they moved in together, and Fisch became familiar with the constant glow of the film projector. By the time he was in the fourth grade, he was serving as ball boy at Bergen Catholic High School and Hackensack High School.
It was then, Fisch said, that, “I kind of caught the bug of loving football.”
It never went away, and by the time he was a senior in high school, he’d resolved to make it a career.
• • •
The assignment was simple, if you were lucky enough to be selected.
And at Hanover Park High School, that meant just eight people. But those eight Independent Study candidates were working toward their futures, and Fisch knew what that meant.
Football.
The pitch: A football coaching manual for youth coaches. Everything from stretching to offense and defense to how you get special teams going for 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds. They even put on a youth clinic for the state of New Jersey; 12 state champion head coaches turned up.
When it came time to tell his family about his football ambitions, some of them balked.
"It was everything you could imagine," he said. "I think they were more afraid of gout than anything else. ‘What are you doing? What is your reasoning? Wouldn’t law school be easier?…”
But he had champions at home.
“But never with my parents," Fisch addded. "My dad was the one who asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ and I said I want to coach football, and he said, ‘You better find the No. 1 school in the country and apply to school there.’ That was his mentality: You might as well go learn from the best. That was the best advice I ever got. Don’t just go somewhere to go somewhere. If you’re gonna go try to jump into a profession, you might as well not just make it.”
• • •
Football has taken Fisch on a journey since then.
It started in Gainesville, Florida, where he took his father’s advice. The Gators had become a powerhouse under Steve Spurrier, and The Ol’ Ball Coach might as well have been a sage to young Fisch.
For two years, Fisch tried to find work with the football program. A precocious tennis player from New Jersey? Good luck.
"It was a big challenge to even get in the building," Fisch said. "When I finally got in and got an opportunity after my sophomore year to be a student volunteer, I spent a year saying very little and creating as much work as I possibly could for myself. Just using the opportunity to be around Coach Spurrier. Maybe he wasn’t around me, but I was around him."
That first year, Fisch says, "I don’t think I was given a T-shirt. I was buying my own gear."
But one day during the spring, the coaching staff was taking a break and going tubing.
"Hey, Jedd, let’s go tubing," Spurrier told Fisch.
Fisch didn’t think Spurrier even knew his name.
During Fisch’s senior year, he became defensive coordinator for the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville, then he moved back north to become wide receivers and quality control coach for the New Jersey Red Dogs of the Arena Football League.
That would’ve been enough for Fisch. He’d gotten his foot in the door.
But when Spurrier called the following year with an offer to become one of just two graduate assistant coaches, Fisch dived in with two feet. He continued to impress Spurrier, and in 2002, when the Houston Texans joined the NFL as an expansion team, Fisch became the youngest coach in the league as a defensive quality control coach.
He has since worked for five more NFL teams and, now with Arizona, five college football teams.
"I could never have done what I’ve done without the emotional support of my parents, the financial support early in this profession," he said. "I met my now wife 21 years ago when I was a nothing GA making nothing, doing everything. She’s moved 12 times. Without the support of those people, I’m not here."
• • •
It may have been Fisch’s father who pushed him toward making football his future, but it was his mother’s psychology background that helped him stand out.
"Mental health is a huge part of this profession with the players," he said. "Having an awareness of what people’s moods are, and the importance of your own mood to affect the game."
Fisch’s focus on mental health has helped bridge the gap of his lack of playing experience.
"I always felt like because of (me) not playing, it was my job to be a great listener to the players, to understand what their needs and wants were. I’ve never shied away from that," Fisch said. "I always say, ‘I haven’t done what you’ve done. You have to tell me if what I’m asking for you to do is possible.’ If you are willing to show vulnerability and have those discussions, you can earn their respect.
"Being willing to adjust, listen and adapt and, at the same time, prove you know what you’re talking about."
It also helps gain credibility when you’ve got the Rolodex that Fisch boasts.
Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh, Sean McVay and Bill Belichick — all just a phone call away. At a recent Arizona football event, former Pro Bowl tight end Todd Heap brought his two sons. And he’s a Sun Devil. But theirs is a bond that goes back almost two decades, when Fisch served as an offensive assistant for Heap’s Baltimore Ravens.
Years later, they remain close, and not because Fisch taught Heap how to perfect the out route.
Now that he’s back at the college level following a brief return to the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams in 2018-19 and the New England Patriots last year, Fisch has found a home again.
In Tucson, of all places. About as far from Livingston, New Jersey, as it gets.
"You’ve got to do it for the cause, not the applause," he said. "I love the game of football. I love teaching kids. I could’ve stayed in the NFL for as long as I wanted. But I love being on a college campus, being with the kids, watching these guys get better. It’s more about teaching, being a part of their lives. It’s about giving a dude a hug when something’s going wrong and being fired up for them when something’s going right.
"If you’re not in it for all three of those things, it’s kind of eh. It’s not for me."
