How Mike Fox rebounded and brought UNC to the brink of a College World Series title
They all want it for Mike Fox, his baseball players past and present.
And not just the players Fox has coached at North Carolina. Others, including those who once played for Fox at North Carolina Wesleyan, want it for him, as well. Another championship, another ring.
Fox has the Tar Heels in the College World Series for the seventh time in his 20 seasons as UNC's coach. In the five years since the Tar Heels’ last trip to Omaha, Neb., in 2013, he has questioned himself, questioned his direction of the program and what changes needed to be made.
But that’s all behind him now. The Tar Heels are back in Omaha, beginning play Saturday against Oregon State. In what is the final year of Fox’s current contract, an elusive NCAA title — on the Division I level, at least — could be his and the Tar heels.
“There’s nothing I would want more, or any other player on this team, than to give coach Fox and the rest of the coaching staff and the university a national championship,” UNC first baseman Michael Busch said Tuesday, a day before the Tar Heels left for Omaha.
Fox, 62, has won a lot of games. He has won ACC titles. He has been so close to an NCAA title, the Tar Heels twice losing in the final championship series — both times to Oregon State — in 2006 and 2007.
“Winning a national championship is hard and baseball might be the hardest sport to win it in,” said Chad Flack, a member of the 2006 and '07 UNC teams. “It doesn’t matter how talented you are, the ball has to bounce the right way and you have to get hot at the right time. So many factors go into winning games, much less going all the way.
“But I don’t think a national championship is ever going to define coach Fox’s career. What he’s done, the amount of wins he has for the school, the winning percentage, how any times we’ve been to Omaha, which is so difficult … that’s all impressive but it’s the guys who he has had come through the program and what they’re doing in society now that he probably cares about the most.”
And the Wesleyan guys. And the Millbrook High guys. Fox’s first head coaching job, after all, was at Millbrook, in 1981.
“He really knows the game and he taught us so much,” says Morris Marshburn, a CPA and financial consultant in Raleigh who played for Fox at Millbrook. “He was very competitive but in a good way. Very disciplined. You had to be a team player and follow the rules.”
After two years at Millbrook, coaching and teaching, Fox spent time repossessing cars for GMAC, quickly realizing that coaching baseball, not asking for someone’s car keys, was his calling.
N.C. Wesleyan gave him that chance for the first time at the college level in 1983. His wife, Cheryl, was a pharmacist in Rocky Mount. His two children, son Matthew and daughter Morgan, were born in Rocky Mount. It was a pleasant life and a good job for 15 years.
“No scholarships, no egos,” Fox said.
There was a lot of winning. In 1989, the Battling Bishops were NCAA Division III champions, handing out rings, celebrating with pool parties in Rocky Mount, building bonds that have lasted with the passing of time.
“Coach Fox has a great baseball mind but he was also like a second dad,” said Doug Flowers, a former Wesleyan All-America and catcher/first baseman on the ’89 team. “When you think back, how many lives has he been a part of? I’m just one little speck of that and I’m proud to say I have been and I’m hoping they get that championship for him this year.
"I don’t know how much longer he’s going to coach. I’m glad they’re back in Omaha and definitely hope they get one for him. It would be very fitting.”
Fitting for the former baseball walk-on, who became a starter at UNC and was named to the all-tournament team in UNC's College World Series appearance in 1978. Returning to UNC to coach in 1998, Fox took the Tar Heels to the College Series six times between 2006 and 2013.
Then, some tough times. For Fox, the personal introspection came after the Tar Heels were left out of the NCAA tournament in 2015, after they failed to qualify for either the ACC Championship or NCAA tournament in 2016.
“It’s just the journey, the journey of coaching,” Fox said this week.”That’s why you can’t take the winning for granted. Because you’re going to hit the other side of it. It’s just part of it.”
Another part of it was UNC being under NCAA scrutiny for alleged academic fraud. The turmoil was seemingly everywhere, never-ending, touching many of UNC's athletic programs.
There would be no NCAA sanctions in the end. But it took a toll on many, including Fox — the uncertainty, and seeing the baseball program slip after the 2013 College World Series appearance.
“I’d like to think I handled it pretty well, from years of coaching, knowing that you’re going to have highs and lows,” he said. “And you better enjoy the highs because the lows are coming. No matter how much you protect yourself and try to avoid them, they’re pretty much inevitable because winning is not guaranteed.”
Fox said the challenge for the coaching staff was the same as they ask of the players. As he said, “We looked ourselves in the mirror first.”
“We said, ‘OK, what do we need to do, what do we need to change?’ I had to look at myself first from a responsibility standpoint. Are we getting too complacent? Do we need to make some changes?”
What else did Fox see in the mirror?
“I think I’m my harshest critic,” he said. “You don’t have to think about that as much when you’re younger and you’re coaching. You really have to think about it as you get older. The kids stay the same. So am I in their world? … Sometimes you have to loosen up a little bit. They are kids. They are playing a game.
“So that’s probably what I saw. I want to win, I want to win at the highest level. And you go from the World Series to not making the ACC tournament and it’s on me. It’s not on them, it’s on me. I get it.”
Fox reassessed everything, from the coaching staff to practices to the “culture” of the program. And the players. They needed to be evaluated — the leadership of the group, the team’s attitude.
Was there too much selfishness? Was there enough accountability? Was there enough hard work?
“You can make it all about you in baseball,” Fox said. “You have to preach team — “we” over “me” — all the time.”
Fox noted that for 35 years, every player has received a letter from him before the season detailing what’s expected of them. He revisited that letter.
“I had to read it myself and said, OK, it’s still what we’re doing,” he said.
Little has changed in his approach since the days at Wesleyan, when the team meal at times was burgers and fries from McDonald’s or Hardee’s.
In 1989, Eric Jarman’s home run in the 13th inning gave Wesleyan an 8-7 victory over Cal State Stanislaus in the Division III national championship game in Bristol, Conn. In 2006, Flack delivered a two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning against Alabama that won the Tuscaloosa Super Regional and gave Fox his first World Series trip as UNC’s coach.
"It was hard to get that far and come up that short," Flack said of the CWS losses to Oregon State. "But the older I get the more I appreciate how far we made it and the experience we shared as a team. That's something that always carries on."
Coaching and baseball, in many ways, can be a continuum, stretching across decades. But everything comes to an end eventually.
Fox, born in Asheville but raised in Charlotte, has proven himself as a coach. He’s back in Omaha, again.
Could Fox be tempted to retire should the Tar Heels win it all? A new contract might be in the works and he might choose to continue to “live the dream,” as he calls coaching his alma mater.
“It would be a heck of a closure to a tremendous career,” said Jarman, a Greenville native. “He will become a grandfather soon and I sent him a message saying it would be quite special if he gets a national championship and a grand child within weeks of one another.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2018 at 12:54 PM with the headline "How Mike Fox rebounded and brought UNC to the brink of a College World Series title."