"I think that he found home, without question here at Pius," Dick Fischer's wife Mary Riegert says. "As a student? He left the seminary and he came here and it was the perfect fit."
Dick Fischer is known as Mr Pius.
"He spanned three generations approximately," Joe Chrnelich says. "From going to school here to coaching years. And then after coaching. And Dick and his selfless manner? Whatever needed to be done? He'd do it."
Now after his passing last month, those who know him best honor the man this Christmas season.
"Dick Fischer came up to me," Mary Chrnelich Nellen says. "He wasn't the head coach yet but he was already helping. And he said are you Joe Chrnelich's sister? And I said yes I am. And he said well you can be upstairs for basketball tonight and I said no I don't play basketball. And he said well, you can either choose to come up to basketball or you can sit in detention. And didn't do anything wrong!"
"It's something that came from Mother Teresa. Do small things with great love. Behind the scenes things," Riegert says. "If I had a nickel for every time he did just the kindness that no one knew about."
"I decided I was just going to play basketball," Joe Chrnelich says. "So Dick wasn't happy about that. Didn't talk to me for quite awhile but after winning back to back state championships my junior and senior year with our team? He came around to thinking and then going to UW? He said I could see why you decided. Still think you should have played football, but..."
He coached football and boys hoops. But on the 50th anniversary of Title IX? He's best known for helping girls basketball grow.
"He was ahead of his time," Chrnelich Nellen says. "We played very positionless basketball. Very open ended basketball. All of us were allowed to handle the ball. All of us played every position. And that's what made us who we were. And he also, he didn't coach us like we were girls. It wasn't cool to coach girls back then, you know 1980. He coached us like athletes."
Fischer will be missed. But his wife and sons carry on the Pius tradition.
