While his players headed home after their Feb. 1 loss to West York in the YAIAA quarterfinals, Larry Fisher drove straight to the emergency room.
The 38-year-old Eastern York boys' basketball coach was diagnosed with pancreatitis that afternoon and was awaiting results on testing to determine how serious it was. He checked his voicemail after the 82-68 defeat and headed directly to the hospital
"While I was at the game some of the results came back from the testing and it was more serious than they first thought," Fisher said. "My liver counts were a little off, so they wanted to get me in there.
"I checked in and I ended up being there for five days."
During that time, Fisher had his gallbladder removed during surgery and lost 15 pounds in less than a week. He was ordered not to have any food or water for three days in order to shut his pancreas down and had a verbal confrontation with a nurse when he dared to brush his teeth one morning. He was then put on a liquid diet for the next few days and missed almost a week of Eastern practices.
Fisher credits his assistant coaches, who include Al Vican, Pat Cristino and Mike Chronister with keeping the wheels turning at practice.
"Pretty much business as usual went on around here while I was gone," Fisher said. "Our team practiced as hard for the assistant coaches as they did for me. They didn't take any time off, they showed no slack in practice. It was good to see them respond to the assistants and I think it has built us even more because they know the assistant coaches are there for them. They've kind of bonded and know they can lean on them a little differently than they did before."
Even when the head coach returned for practice on Feb. 7, he was limited in what he could do. He spent most of the session sitting down and could not yell. He had to have messages relayed from him to players on the floor. Even during the Feb. 14 District 3 contest against West York, he still felt weak.
But after the 12th-seeded Golden Knights pulled off the upset in overtime to advance to the District 3 quarterfinals, Fisher made a complete recovery.
"The day after we played, I don't know if it was adrenaline or what, but it was something," Fisher said. "I felt so much better."
Funny how that works. The Golden Knights (18-10) earned another victory a week later in the consolation semifinals to lock up a bid to the state tournament. On Friday, a healthy Fisher will head to Royersford on Friday with his team to take on District 1 champion Pottstown (22-3) in the first round of the PIAA tournament in a 7:30 contest at Spring-Ford High School.
Fisher's biggest lesson from the whole ordeal?
"Don't get pancreatitis," the coach said with a laugh.
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