If it’s what’s up front that counts, the Risley Middle School Wildcats of Brunswick look to be in good shape heading into their 2015 season. After helping the Wildcats reach the Georgia Middle School Conference Championship Game last season as a seventh grader, two-way standout Fisher Ogden returns to spearhead both the offensive and defensive fronts for Risley this year.
“He’s just a great kid,” says head coach Stephen Hickson. “He has a strong desire to play, and he really stepped it up in the spring. As good as he was last year, I’m excited about the way he has grown.”
At 5’8” and nearly 235 pounds, Ogden was already a physical mismatch for most of his middle school counterparts as a seventh-grader. “Every time we put him on defense last year, he just wreaked havoc,” Wilkinson says. “One person can’t block him.”
But, according to the coach, Fisher’s heart for the game is what makes him special. And that heart was on full display last year in the Wildcats’ losing effort in the conference championship.
“The game didn’t turn out too well for us,” Wilkinson says. “But Fisher was incredible. He had an injury, but he wouldn’t come out of the game. I don’t recall exactly what the injury was. But the other kids were telling me he could barely walk, and he just wouldn’t come out of the game.”
In addition to his physical gifts and competitive spirit, Wilkinson says Ogden also benefits greatly from his desire to learn and improve. “He’s like a sponge when it comes to picking things up,” the coach says. “And if he doesn’t understand something, he’ll come to you for extra help. He is as coachable a player as I’ve seen.”
The second member of his family to star in athletics at Risley, Ogden has a goal of playing college football someday. And to achieve that, Wilkinson says he has worked as hard in the classroom as on the field.
“All his teachers say the same thing I say,” he says. “He wants to learn. He’s as teachable a kid as he is coachable. I taught his older brother, and he was the same way. His brother didn’t play football, but he was a standout baseball player.” Fisher also plays baseball, and even at his size is agile enough to excel for the Wildcats’ basketball team during the football offseason.
“He definitely wants to go to college.” Wilkinson says. “He hasn’t decided where he wants to go or what he wants to do, but he wants to go to college.”
Ogden also applies the same work ethic that he brings to his academic and athletic endeavors to his activities off the field. “I know he likes to hunt and fish,” his coach says. “But he spends a lot of his time during the summer doing odd jobs whenever he can get them. He’s basically a quiet kid but he’s become a leader by example. Starting in the spring, he stepped it up to the point where the other kids started to notice. Now they look at Fisher and do what he’s doing.”
