GETTING THE STORY RIGHT

By Amy Lynch

Fish

As a television producer, director, writer, and reporter, Jon Fish Michigan ’92, has made a career out of chronicling people’s lives in a compelling way.

“When you’re storytelling, the No. 1 thing you want to do is get it right,” Fish said. “An athlete is honoring you by sharing their story. Sometimes it’s a hard story to share, and it’s always a privilege to hear it. I just want to make sure I tell every story the best way I possibly can.” Fish also has plenty of tales to share about the Phi Kappa Psi Brotherhood’s lasting impacts on his own life.

Growing up in the greater Boston area, sports factored heavily into Fish’s upbringing. He played hockey, ran track, and kicked for his high school football team, but it was his participation on a nationally ranked high school soccer team that earned him recruiting attention from colleges and universities. Fish visited a number of schools including Allegheny College in Western Pennsylvania and Indiana University. However, previous trips to visit his older brother Rob Michigan ’90 at the University of Michigan left an indelible mark that proved impossible to improve upon.

“It was parents’ weekend, and my parents sent me out instead to visit my brother when I was 16,” Fish recalled. “I went to a hockey game, and the hockey team was really awesome. Then I went to a football game. I remember walking into the Big House and thinking, ‘This is it. This is what I want. This is where I want to be.’”

Rob introduced his little brother around the Phi Kappa Psi house, laying the groundwork for the younger Fish to join the Fraternity as a legacy once he got to Ann Arbor. “They knew who I was, and I knew who they were, so it was a very comfortable progression,” Fish said.

“I thought for a minute that maybe I should go somewhere different than my brother, so I applied to some other Big Ten schools. Then I realized, wait, there’s nothing wrong with being like my brother! He’s always been a major influence in my life. Now I can’t even fathom not having gone to Michigan or joining any other fraternity for that matter.”

Fish wanted to jump into sports right away, but there wasn’t a Division I men’s soccer team at Michigan at the time. Instead, he found himself briefly playing club soccer and hockey, moving into the Phi Psi house at 1811 Washtenaw during his sophomore year.

“It was this massive mansion that looked like something right out of the movies,” he laughed. “We had these great events with what felt like thousands of people. The first football game I went to in my freshman year was when Desmond Howard made ‘the catch’ against Notre Dame. It was really a glory-year era for the whole school.”

It was also around that time Fish began to discover he had a flair for storytelling. He entered the university with thoughts of pursuing a degree in architecture, but quickly realized he lacked the true passion necessary to pursue that major. Shifting to an American history major was another decision that came naturally.

“I grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts — the birthplace of American history, the shot heard around the world, the Patriots, ‘the British are coming,’ and all that,” he explained. “I started to add in a few communications classes my junior year, and I liked the campus radio station I was working at.”

Around the same time, Fish tried out for the football team as a walk-on after growing 5 inches and gaining 50 pounds since his freshman year.

“Having kicked in high school plus playing soccer, running long distance, and playing hockey, I had a lot of lower-body strength, and I realized that I could kick the football pretty far,” he said. “I really just wanted to run out of that tunnel and touch the banner.”

A friend helped Fish make a tape that he sent to the football office. He received a call back on April Fools’ Day his junior year, but the team ended up signing another player. Fish instead threw himself into working for the athletic department and at the University Activity Center, coordinating homecoming festivities and passing out programs at volleyball games.

“I loved getting involved and doing everything,” he shared. “The cool thing about Michigan is, and I say this to a lot of people, you can make a big school small. You can’t make a small school big.”

Fish harbored ambitions of a career in advertising after graduation, but a chance meeting with a CNN rep changed his mind and, as it turned out, the course of his future. An internship there led to networking opportunities, eventually landing him at ESPN where he’s been ever since and continues to delight in edgy investigative journalism. These days, Fish stays busy writing and producing shows including SportsCenter and College GameDay as well as documentary films and other content. Along the way, he’s earned 11 Emmy awards and a long list of additional accolades.

Through it all, Fish’s Phi Kappa Psi brothers have been a constant source of friendship and support, meeting up as often as they can and keeping in touch through phone calls and texts on a near-daily basis.

“I really have an extended network all over the country,” Fish said. “These people are basically my family. I could be in three different states for work, and I know that I have brothers all over the country that I can call wherever I am.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a Phi Psi brother in Miami sought medical advice for his ill mother. Fish connected him with his father, a doctor, to help. She recovered. When Fish’s father passed away from Covid in November 2023, the brother immediately reached out to share how grateful he’d been.

“The Brothers are always there when you just want to hang out, and also in the really hard times,” Fish said. “We’ve all grown up and have different jobs now, but our willingness to jump in and be there for each other hasn’t changed. To me, that’s what the Brotherhood has always been about.”

LINKS TO SOME OF BROTHER FISH’S WORK:

THE MICHIGAN: vimeo.com/997823506

PIN KINGS: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pin-kings/id1686185155

PIN KINGS: vimeo.com/226803009

GOING BIG (SAM BOWIE): vimeo.com/427797922

A proud Hoosier graduate of Indiana University, Amy Lynch is an Indianapolis-based freelance writer and an active member of the Midwest Travel Journalists Association.