Coach says the player has been working a summer job to resolve legal problem of delinquent child support.
By GREG AUMAN
Published August 4, 2004
Brian Fisher has been arrested 3 times since March for being late on child support.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The University of South Florida expects to open its season without senior Brian Fisher, the team's offensive MVP last season and a versatile star who had been projected as the starting running back after spring drills.
"We're not planning on him. We're planning without him," coach Jim Leavitt said at the Conference USA preseason kickoff. "It's not frustrating for me, because I haven't planned on him. If I had, it could be frustrating, but I'm focusing on the players who are with us."
Fisher, 21, has been arrested three times since March, all related to delinquent payment of child support to two women, both students at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. Leavitt said Fisher will not practice with the team until his legal issues are resolved, and said he reiterated that to him when they last spoke late last week.
"He fully understands that we will discuss his future or not his future at South Florida after those things are resolved, if and when they are," Leavitt said. "We won't even go to the next step until that happens."
USF's preseason depth chart lists senior Clenton Crossley as starting running back, with junior Andre Hall of St. Petersburg as the backup. Fisher, who shifted from receiver to running back after last season, has a redshirt year available, so he could sit out this year and be eligible to play in 2005.
Leavitt said Fisher has been working this summer to help raise money for the child support payments - he is more than $5,000 behind on total payments of about $18,000, according to recent court records. Whatever he has earned since his last arrest, it hasn't gotten to Sarida McWilliams, a West Florida junior who has a 2-year-old son, Khazyren, with Fisher.
She said the only money she received from Fisher was a $750 check last week from a "cash purge," which he was required to pay to be released from jail after an arrest on contempt charges for non-payment in June. She and Fisher were together during her senior year in high school, but he hasn't been a part of her life since their son was born.
"It's not only the money situation," McWilliams said. "We did have a relationship. This wasn't just a one-night stand, and he just doesn't take responsibility for it."
McWilliams said she hasn't heard from Fisher, who could not be reached for comment, in more than a year. His mother called her, but only told her that reporters might be calling her, she said.
McWilliams works as a clerk at a Pensacola law firm to pay the $85 a week for day care for Khazyren while she is taking classes.
McWilliams has met the other woman Fisher owes child support to, Shacondra Primm, as the two have taken classes together at West Florida.
