By: <IMG SRC="http://files.12thman.com/graphics/bylines/charean.png">  : Charean Williams '86, Special Contributor to 12thMan.com
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CLARKSBURG, West Virginia – Jimbo Fisher hasn't lived in Harrison County since 1987, though the Texas A&M coach owns land here and his mother, brother and other relatives still live here. It isn't what it was.
The 900-square-foot home Fisher grew up in is now twice that size and has granite counter tops and wood floors. Fisher's mother, Gloria, has added a swimming pool, a covered deck and an outdoor kitchen, too.
The North View Athletic Club's baseball field, where Fisher once hit a home run in extra innings for a 2-1 win in a Babe Ruth League game, is covered in clover and the fences are leaning. The basketball court, where he waited his turn for pickup games, sits quietly. Hite Field, where Fisher played high school football, still has a rusty scoreboard declaring it the "Home of the Liberty Mountaineers," though Liberty has an on-campus stadium now.
Yet, this remains "home" to Fisher.
"It's drastically different," Fisher, 53, said, "but without a doubt, that's home. That'll always be home."
Clarksburg is 39 miles southwest of Morgantown on Interstate 79, located along the West Fork River and Elk Creek. Its population is declining, now estimated at 15,480, with nearby Bridgeport growing.
Harrison County was built on coal mines and glass factories. Fisher's maternal grandfather earned his living in one of the glass factories in the area, and Fisher's father, Big Jim, was a night foreman in a coal mine.
Today, the FBI is a leading employer, with its Criminal Justice Information Services Division located across the street from the county's top draw, the Pete Dye Golf Club.
"This used to be coal country but not anymore," said Larry Mazza, a native of the area who now is the CEO and president of MVB Financial and Mike Florio's business partner with Pro Football Talk.
"The FBI center and oil and gas have spurred a revitalization."
COAL MINING OR COACHING
It's easy to see why College Station reminds Jimbo Fisher of home. All his new home lacks are the hills. It's so hilly here that one of the first football fields Fisher played on was 90 yards long with one end zone extending up a hill underneath a goal post. If a player was tackled short of the hill, the ball was moved back 10 yards.
They don't use "Howdy" as a greeting here, but it's every bit as friendly. Drivers wave as they pass.
Not everyone knows everyone, but everyone knows Jimbo.
"Jimbo's still Jimbo," Gloria Fisher said. "They like Jimbo, not because he's a coach, but because he's one of them. He grew up here, and he's stayed the same person. Whenever he's here, everyone wants to see him."
The main entrance into downtown Clarksburg has a parking garage over it. One side welcomes visitors to Clarksburg: "Home of Jimbo Fisher." The other side touts it as the "Home of Mike Carey," the West Virginia University women's basketball coach.
Carey, who is 8 years older than Fisher, coached Fisher in a seventh-grade summer league, and the two later played competitive softball together.
Fisher and West Virginia Women's Basketball Coach Mike Carey
"Jimbo was a great player," Carey said. "It's funny. We always laugh, because we ran around Clarksburg for years and got kicked out of half the places, and now they have our names up there."
West Virginia has produced more than its share of coaches, particularly football coaches. Fielding Yost, John McKay, Lou Holtz, Nick Saban, Rich Rodriguez and Fisher all are natives of the state.
"It was coal mining or coaching," said Bryan Fisher, Jimbo's brother, who is a former high school and college coach.
Jimbo learned he didn't want to become a coal miner when he was only 10, getting a life lesson after letting his school work slip. He descended into the bowels of Clinchfield Mine No. 3 with his father, and Big Jim handed him a shovel and told him to start digging.
"After about 30 minutes, I said, 'I don't like this,'" Jimbo said. "He said, 'Well, you've got two choices around here. There ain't a lot of jobs. Do you want to be a coal miner or do you want to go to school and find your way out?' I said, 'I'll go to school.' That was the end of that."
Big Jim developed black-lung disease, had several strokes and died from a heart attack in 1992 at the age of 62.
CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS
John James Jr. was born in Clarksburg on Oct. 9, 1965. He answered to Jimmy and J.J. -- because of the many Jims in the family -- before his great aunt began calling him Jimbo. It stuck. Bryan, Jimbo's only sibling, arrived six years later.
"From the time Jimbo could walk, he either had a ball in his hand or a gun in his hand," Gloria said.
Or he was riding a horse.
Fisher was a championship rider before he was a national championship coach, winning his first competition when he was only 3.
"I was a barrel racer," Fisher said. "I used to race ponies and quarter horses at the fair. I won a bunch. I grew up on horses because my grandfather Fisher ran all the horse-pulling and tractor-pulling contests at the fair. He brought my dad a pony for me before I was even born when he found out I was going to be boy. I was on a horse from the minute I was born."
Sports, though, quickly became the passion for both Fisher boys. When they weren't working on the farm, Jimbo and Bryan were "playing ball" on the 16 acres. They used the siding between a pair of windows on the side of the house as goal posts . . . until the day Jimbo kicked a football through the window.
"To the left of those windows was the kitchen window," Jimbo explained. "My grandmother was working at the sink. She just happened to bend over and had her head down, and I kicked the ball right through the middle of the window. It shattered, and all the glass went all over her head and back and neck, and the ball went all the way through and hit the refrigerator. If she had been looking up, it would have hit her right in the face.
"Trust me, I didn't know whether to go check on her or take off running."
Gloria replaced some of the glass windows with Plexiglass to prevent a repeat.
The boys played football in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring and summer.
"Whatever one I was playing was my favorite," Jimbo said. "It really was. I truly loved to play all three."
Jimbo's exploits in the Jerry West League, the Babe Ruth League and the Pee Wee League -- and later at Clarksburg Liberty High School -- still are recounted by locals. John Miller, the executive editor of the city's newspaper, The Exponent Telegram, covered Fisher in high school and at Salem College.
"Jimbo was the type of guy that, if you're on the playground picking teams, he's the first guy picked," Miller said. "You wanted him on your team. He's a winner. He's going to find a way."
Fisher became the starting quarterback at Liberty High School as a sophomore. He earned all-state honors in football, as a point guard in basketball and as a middle infielder and pitcher in baseball, honors commemorated on a plaque in the school's trophy case. Almost everyone, including Jimbo Fisher, will tell you Frank Loria, an All-American at Virginia Tech, was the best football player ever to come out of Clarksburg.
But Miller rates Fisher as the best three-sport athlete ever in Harrison County.
Liberty retired Fisher's jersey, and the weight room bears his name after Fisher's donation helped build it and furnish it.
Baseball probably was Fisher's best sport. He earned a baseball scholarship to Clemson, although that lasted only a semester. His return home to pursue a football career -- which led him to Salem College and then to Samford -- disappointed Big Jim, who believed his son had a future as a Major Leaguer. It upset his mother, who, after Jimbo called to tell her he was leaving Clemson, spent the night scrubbing the porch.
"I didn't realize how much I loved football until I didn't have football," Fisher said.
Not long after that, Fisher departed Clarksburg to fulfill his football dream. He may never live in Harrison County full time again, but 32 years after leaving, it's still where his heart is . . . and where many of his biggest fans are.
"Hey, I'm just Jimbo there. I can just be me and not worry about it," Fisher said.
