CAMP US PROFILE
‘You fail a lot
in baseball.
The freshmen,
for instance,
were all very
successful before
they came here.
Many were very
highly recruited.
But they never
had struggles.
That’s why it
can be so jarring
when they all
of a sudden are
struggling for the
first time in a
sport in which
things had come
too easily.’
Coach Mike Fox
’ 78
Mike Fox: Feet on the Ground,
an Eye for the Loose Ball
This is what Mike Fox ’ 78 told Carolina’s baseball team when the
USA Today/ESPN preseason
coaches’ poll ranked the Tar Heels No. 2 in
January: Nothing.
No admonitions that the successes of the
past two years, which included trips to the
finals of the College World Series in Omaha,
don’t mean anything as far as the 2008 season is concerned. Nothing about keeping
your eyes on the prize. Not even a word
about the poll being perhaps an affirmation
of the team’s hard work and dedication.
Just nothing.
“We don’t talk about stuff like that,” Fox
said in early February, a few weeks before
the season was to begin. “For one thing,
there must be seven or eight polls out there,
and for another thing, we’ve never done
that, and we’re not going to start now. It’s
flattering, but our players understand that
polls really don’t count for very much.
“They’re smart, and they’ve got some
experience now — they had to deal with
expectations last year. The guys have a
pretty good handle on it and understand
the things that are real and the things that
aren’t. We harp with them to control what
they can control and not worry about the
other things.” smoke. Fox still looks in fighting trim, and
Fox, entering his 10th year as the Heels’ when he talks of toughness (a favorite
coach, is the ultimate System Guy: Build a topic), he doesn’t seem to be dishing out a
program based on hard work and team coaching platitude. You don’t spend thou-
play, and success will find you. It’s a philos- sands of afternoons under a hot North
ophy Fox, 51, has embraced in a lifetime in Carolina sun — Fox was coach at Division
sports. His UNC record is 398-176-1, and III North Carolina Wesleyan for 16 years
the Tar Heels have made it to the NCAA before coming to Chapel Hill — and not
tournament eight times. have both a strong sense of purpose and a
During his tenure, 37 players have been fierce inner drive.
drafted by pro teams, including six who The best example comes not from the
were first-round picks. And Fox, a defen- diamond but from the basketball court. Fox
sive-minded second baseman for the Tar also played on UNC’s junior varsity basket-Heels from 1976 to 1978, is one of a hand- ball team from 1974 to 1976, a point guard
ful of people who have both coached and who couldn’t shoot but would play defense
played in the College World Series. and do the hustle things coaches appreciate.
There are coaches who preach hard Or, as he put it,“I wasn’t the most talented
work and discipline, but their bellies hang player, but I played hard and listened.”
out precipitously over their belts, and you During tryouts one year, another player
get the feeling they are dying for practice was coasting in for a fast-break basket. Fox,
to be over so they can have a beer and a on defense, raced the length of the court
Mike Fox ’ 78 fronts
the skeleton of the
new Boshamer
Stadium. His team,
ranked near the top
of college baseball in
the preseason, faces
the additional challenge of playing its
home games away
from home this year,
in Cary.
