Adam Fisher is fulfilling a dream as Temple’s coach. He hopes to be ‘here for a long time.’

When Adam Fisher was in the second grade, he was asked to write down things about himself.

Most of the questions were simple, like his favorite food. Then there was the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

While most kids jotted down doctor or chef, he said, Fisher proudly wrote that he wanted to be a college basketball coach.

“Why? I have no idea,” Fisher said. “I love college basketball. I love the students when you pack an arena, I love the band, and the comradery of bringing people together that are at the university currently and then you want to go back as an alumni.”

Nearly three decades later, the Bucks County native, who graduated from Penn State in 2006 and immediately dove in the coaching world, has been living out his dream. Fisher worked under former Penn State and current Florida Gulf Coast coach Pat Chambers and Hall of Famers Jay Wright and Jim Larrañaga at Villanova and Miami, respectively.

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At each stop, he grew and learned from other coaches, as he waited for the chance to lead his own team. That finally came in 2023, when he became Temple’s head coach.

Now, Fisher is in his third year, and has Temple (11-6, 3-1 American) trending in the right direction. In November, he received a two-year extension through 2030. While the program has expressed its faith in Fisher, he hopes to build the team back into an NCAA tournament contender.

“Every job has pressure no matter what your profession is,” Fisher said. “With this job, the pressure is the great history, the rich tradition that comes with taking over a program like Temple. For me, you got to fuel yourself on the pressure and it’s something that is there and it kind of helps motivate, to get back to where Temple basketball was … it helps fuel you to not ever be outworked, to make sure you’re doing everything you possibly can for the program and put yourself in the best situation possible.”

Fisher credits his father Neil for giving him the itch to coach. Neil was he and his brother’s first coach while they played basketball, among other sports, in the Warrington Athletic Association.

Fisher’s friends still bring up the times they had Fisher’s father as a coach. Neil’s impact went beyond sports as well, as Fisher’s family owned a restaurant. He watched his father run it on his own.

“All our friends still to this day will talk about playing for my dad, and that’s really cool when you know that somebody makes that impact,” Fisher said. “I think that was when I learned I want to coach, I want to impact lives the way he did in the way he helped change people for the better. And bring people together and show that you can win and have fun and all those things.”

Fisher bounced between schools after graduating with a kinesiology degree from Penn State. He served as a graduate assistant at Villanova under Wright, where he eventually followed then assistant coach Chambers to Boston University and Penn State, when Chambers took over those programs.

He held various roles; director of operations, video coordinator, and director of player personnel. But in 2013, he got his break.

Former Miami assistant coach Michael Huger got in Larrañaga’s ear about a coach at Boston University. The Hurricanes had an open spot for a director of player operations and hired Fisher, who learned under Huger and Larrañaga’s tutelage.

Huger let Fisher join his recruiting visits and even let him crash in his office while he worked. Larrañaga became a father figure for the budding coach, whom he called the best director of player operations he’s ever had.

He wasn’t a bench coach yet, but he coached 35-year-olds during the summer in a fantasy camp, where he impressed with his ability to build relationships, something that would come in handy down the line.

But Fisher wasn’t someone Larrañaga could let go.

“He was going to go to Bowling Green State University with Michael Huger. My wife said to me, ‘You can’t lose Adam. You speak so highly of him and you need to figure out a way to keep him,’” Larrañaga said. “So I called Adam back and said, ‘Instead of going to Bowling Green, I’d like you to stay here as the ops, but I’ll promise you, the first time one of my assistants leaves, I’ll elevate you.’”

His tenure as director of player operations didn’t last long. Assistant coach Eric Konkol was hired as the head coach of Louisiana Tech. Larrañaga stuck to his word and promoted Fisher to a bench coach, where he stayed for seven seasons.

Fisher began looking at Larrañaga as a father figure as their families became friends. When he married his wife Rebecca, Larrañaga was at the wedding. He even showed up a few days early to avoid a hurricane in Miami, while other staff members had to miss it because of the storm.

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“That just shows you who he is,” Fisher said. “That’s the guy he is. I’m interviewing for the Temple job and he’s getting ready to play in the Elite Eight and he has time out of his day to call Arthur Johnson the day of an elite eight game. That’s why I think he’s the greatest. He’s a Hall of Fame coach and Hall of Fame person.”

Even after he left for Penn State in 2021 to work under Micah Shrewsberry, the two stayed in contact.

While at Happy Valley, it was Fisher’s job to handle recruiting in the Philadelphia area. He added players such as Jameel Brown, Demetrius Lilley, Cam Wynter, and Andrew Funk to the team, and helped the Nittany Lions reach the NCAA Tournament in 2023.

Fisher later took the head coaching job at Temple. While he began building a foundation with the Owls, he tapped back into the relationships that he made during his career.

Huger had been fired by Bowling Green that offseason, and his protégé hired him as the Owls’ associate head coach. Jimmy Polisi, who had spent a season with Fisher in Miami, was hired as the director of player operations, the same role that gave Fisher his start.

When guard Jamal Mashburn Jr. was heading into his junior season of high school, Fisher and Larrañaga camped out in a movie theater parking lot to wait for July 1 to offer Mashburn Jr. a scholarship.

Mashburn Jr. never committed to Miami, instead he went to the University of Minnesota and then New Mexico, but when he entered the transfer portal in 2024, he had a familiar face reach out — Fisher. He only spent a year with the team, but the two still talk.

“I was reaching out to him about a lot of stuff, just keeping my mind right. And, you know, he’s a positive person,” said Mashburn Jr., who competes on the Grand Rapids Gold of the NBA G League. “He’s someone who believes in me.”

Fisher still has players reach out that are no longer in the program, like Mashburn Jr. and forward Steve Settle III. Settle tries to watch every Temple game when he can.

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Fisher’s first year at the helm saw Temple make a Cinderella run to the American championship game. While Temple got blown out of the tournament in the first round of the 2024-25 season, the Owls are making strides this season.

The roster looks well connected compared to the last two season. A defense that needed fixing has improved and the offense has been multidimensional.

The Owls have more than a month until the American tournament in March, and were riding a seven-game winning streak before falling to Memphis on Wednesday.

Fisher is hopeful that his team will continue to have success, and he’s committed to get there.

“This is where my family and I want to be,” Fisher said. “We’re excited to be here and continue to build this thing. We knew it was going to take time, taking over the job and where we were in the state of college athletics, we knew this was going to be a challenge early on.

“We’re excited to be here for a long time.”