NY Times-Guy Fisher's Nephew Is Villanova's Rising Star

Corey Fisher, the nephew of former Harlem drug kingpin Guy Fisher, is a potential breakout star guard at Villanova:Henry Ray Abrams/Associated Press

(Story reported by John Branch for the NY Times)


Two Fisher boys, about 40 years apart, grew up in Bronx housing projects, playing basketball on the nearby playgrounds.


The elder, called Radio for his endless chatter, hustled clothes and cheap merchandise on the New York streets until it led him toward leadership of a notorious crime ring. The younger Fisher awoke at 4 a.m. on weekdays to make the quiet, convoluted public-transportation commute to a private high school in New Jersey. Flamboyant in his own way, he scored 105 points in a summer-league game last August.


Guy Fisher is serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary. Corey Fisher, his great-nephew, is the star senior guard for Villanova, the best player on one of the nation’s top basketball teams.


“My uncle, he got in trouble for some bad stuff: drugs, things like that,” Corey Fisher said after a recent practice at Villanova, in Philadelphia’s western suburbs. “A lot of people know about it.”


Fisher first heard about his great-uncle through street-corner whispers. He got the story from his mother when she thought he was old enough. Then he learned all he could about Guy Fisher and Nicky Barnes and the others whose high-style, heroin-fueled crime rings in 1970s Harlem were the basis of the 2007 film “American Gangster.” Finally, Corey Fisher, as a young teenager, went to visit Guy Fisher in prison, the start of a continuing long-range relationship.


(Click here to read the full story on the NY Times website.)

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