Meet Coach Fish - Ethan Fisher

I was an undersized, under-recruited basketball player. I got a full ride to college, played fantastic my second semester, started every game but two due to injury and grades. Then I turned into a partier and drank every night. I failed out at the end of my second semester.

I failed out of a second college at semester. My third coach loved me, but grades from my second school made me ineligible. I took to hard drugs and planned on suicide.

I had an opportunity to play at #1 NCAA Division II. I took to drugs and alcohol. They won the championship that year without me.

I played at a fifth school. My coach and I didn't see eye to eye. I turned to alcohol and drugs. I was ineligible at semester. Suicide became an issue. I saw a counselor, got put on meds, didn't listen, and blacked out, yet never missed a practice while still on the basketball team, I just couldn't play and was a redshirt 2nd semester.

Then everything changed.

The next year, I drank wine at a house party, blacked out, drove drunk, and killed an innocent man. A man with a wife of 37 years. He didn't make it home that night. No prison cell, no judge, no parole officer can give me the pain I wake with everyday from one bad decision. A friend called, ALL I had to do was say no.

I spent 9 months on bond. Then 3 years in prison. I completed military bootcamp—11 months in a 3-month program because staff knew my basketball would ruffle prison politics. The bootcamp admin kept me so I wouldn't start a race war over basketball. I became an elite forest fire firefighter in prison. I took college classes in prison. Even started a business helping others stay out of prison.

I was released to a halfway house for one year. Then placed on an ISP prison ankle monitor while still serving my Department of Corrections sentence for the next 3.5 years. I transferred to another college and played 2 years of college basketball as an inmate of Colorado—never been done before.

We took a 3-30 team, the second worst in the country, to the national tournament. The team got ranked in the top 25. I was voted all conference, tournament MVP, and got invites to professional basketball teams. I couldn't go—still on prison and parole. I only played 15 games. We were 12-3 in those games. We lost 80-85% of games on the road because I couldn't travel due to my ankle monitor.

I became a college basketball coach for 3 years. I was also an in-state basketball recruiter for the university.

Then I saw a professional speaker and decided that was my new career and life in an instant. I overcame my diagnosed social anxiety and horrible stage fright. I performed, booked 750 keynotes, and made over $1 million in speaker fees as a business owner and non-profit founder.

I went from failing out of 5 colleges with GPAs of .000 and .43 to earning 2 bachelor degrees, 3 minors, and an MBA with honors in only 2 years. I was a double full-time student taking 24.5 credits a trimester while playing college basketball full-time and working a full-time 40-hour-per-week job.

I won Entrepreneur Student of the Year. I was awarded the President Award (top student). I'm now working on my doctoral degrees in Business Coaching.

I was featured as one of the top 18 most influential persons in the New York Times/Washington Post Best Selling Leadership books in the country.

Most proud of everything: 23 years sober from alcohol.

I still battle my social anxiety and manic depressive mind daily. I became a mental health first aid instructor. Over 3,000 students have written me saying I saved, changed, and impacted their futures—stopping them from suicide, drunk driving, and more. Nearly 25,000+ have told me their stories after I step off the stage and they wait an hour just to unleash their pains. That is what matters to me the most. They want to be heard and seen. I do just that.

This is who I am. This is what I've lived. This is why I coach your athlete.