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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

Russ Fisher, the 16th coach in the 37-year history of Davie boys soccer, is going to try to breathe life into a moribund program. He was hired June 13 to replace Marco Rebollar, who left when he became the new coach at league rival Reagan.

“A good friend of mine just got hired as the head coach at West Forsyth, John Blake,” Fisher said. “John told me: ‘Hey, I think you’d be a good fit over there.’ So I applied for it and here we are.”

Fisher, 31, grew up in Salisbury, attended high school at East Rowan and played soccer for the Mustangs. He was a part of the marching band at Liberty University. He and wife Madison and their 2-year-old daughter Haisley moved to Advance last September. Russ works for USIC.

This is Fisher’s second high school coaching job. He guided the South Rowan boys from 2018-20. He was also the South girls coach during those three years.

He knows what it’s like to try to build a program from scratch. The male Raiders went 32-98-6 from 2012-17 and went 6-14-3 in Fisher’s first year in 2018. But they became relevant in 2019, making a huge jump to 13-11 as Fisher earned Rowan County Coach of the Year.

“When I got there, there was no chemistry or camaraderie,” Fisher said. “None of the guys hung out outside of soccer; they didn’t really know each other. They really didn’t get along. We brought them together and said: ‘Hey, this is an opportunity for you guys. You’ve got a lot of talent.’ They ran with it. We beat Salisbury that year, which was a huge thing because South hadn’t beaten Salisbury in years.”

In the first round of the 2019 playoffs, the Raiders went toe-to-toe with Surry Central before losing 1-0. That drew the curtain on a marvelous senior class.

“We lost with 32 seconds left,” Fisher said. “It was an absolute heartbreaker.”

South graduated a ton of seniors in 2019, making the 2020 season a brutal task. The starting-over Raiders went 1-12-1 in the COVID-shortened season.

“We had 13 seniors (in 2019), so it was a big reset that year,” Fisher said. “And most of the seniors were starters.”

Fisher did not coach the past three years but stayed close to the game as a referee. He is well aware that he’s facing a long and hard road at Davie. It has enjoyed two winning seasons since the first year in 1988. The War Eagles have suffered 12 straight losing seasons and they’ve been utterly helpless since 2014, going 18-179-3 over 10 years. Last year they went 1-20 overall and 0-14 in the Central Piedmont Conference.

It’s been a long time since a coach has lasted more than three years. Mark McKnight was the coach in 2012. Kenneth Ham (2013-14) and McKnight (2015-16) had two-year stints. Andrew Davis (2017) was the coach for one year. Then Nathan Stephens was at the helm for three years. Jason Clark coached in 2021, followed by Rebollar in 2022 and 2023.

Davie’s all-time record is 179-482-43, and it’s been last in the CPC for 10 straight years.

“I think a realistic goal for us is to get out of the bottom of the conference,” Fisher said. “I think we can definitely improve on last year; it can’t really get much worse than last year. From what I’ve seen so far, the big thing is there’s no team culture, which is very similar to what I inherited at South. I definitely want to embrace the fact they all get to be at one high school. Growing up in Rowan County, we had six high schools. But it’s a unique situation at Davie.”

Fisher has seen talent in summer workouts, but there’s one big problem: Davie’s varsity will be very young this fall.

“The talent is definitely there, but we need to establish more of a team culture and more of a team attitude,” he said. “We’re very young. I mean, I think we’re going to have close to 30 guys that are freshmen and sophomores. We only have six or seven seniors and we don’t have very many juniors. If we can build something this year, we could be good for a few years with the talent we have coming in.”

Fisher actually refereed Davie’s lone victory in 2023, a 2-1 decision over Elkin.

“I refereed a game vs. Reagan as well and their game at Reynolds,” he said. “So I’ve definitely seen them in action and I’ve watched a lot of film from last year, just trying to get myself acquainted with the guys.”

Fisher wants to build more than a team – he wants to build a soccer family. Summer workouts have been a good first step in that process.

“We’ve had close to 30 guys every time,” he said. “We competed in a 6-vs.-6 league this summer at Reynolds. I got to see the boys in a competitive way and doing open workouts at the school. It’s definitely looking better for this year. I think we can grow from last year and kind of learn from our mistakes from last year, especially the upperclassmen. Yeah, I think it’s going to be a good season.”

Fisher is expecting around 70 prospects when tryouts begin July 31. “We’ve got 64 guys in our group app right now,” he said. “We have a very big freshman class.”

All the coaches from Rebollar’s staff are gone. Fisher’s varsity assistant is Julian Delgado. Chris Ferger will be the JV coach.

“I coached (Delgado) at South Rowan,” he said. “He’s a great kid. He’s a little younger, but he definitely deserves the opportunity and he really knows soccer. He’s Hispanic, a Spanish-speaking person, so that helps me a lot with some of the families who only speak Spanish.”

Ferger is a 2020 Davie graduate who played goalie before playing collegiately for Carolina University, a local Division-III school.