|
Entering his 10th season as head coach of the University of North Carolina baseball team, Mike Fox has guided his alma mater to the most successful period in school history and firmly established the Tar Heels as one of the nation's preeminent college baseball programs. Capped by back-to-back trips to the finals of the College World Series in 2006 and 2007, Carolina has made eight appearances in the NCAA Tournament and posted a 398-176-1 record in Fox's nine seasons in Chapel Hill. One of only six men to play in and then coach his alma mater to the College World Series, Fox has led Carolina to six straight 40-win seasons and six consecutive trips to postseason play for the first time in school history. He has coached his teams to NCAA tourney play in 22 of his 24 seasons as a head coach, including a combined 10 trips to the NCAA Division I and Division III World Series. Fox has either played or coached in all 10 CWS wins by the Tar Heels. But just as important as the on-field success Fox has found at UNC is the type of program that he has built. On Feb. 28, 2007, while the Tar Heels were ranked No. 1 by Baseball America, they also claimed the top spot when USA Today re-ranked its preseason top 25 based on the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate (APR). Fox's players are regulars on the Atlantic Coast Conference's Academic Honor Roll, including nine honorees for the 2006-07 school year, and he has coached two ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District III selections in the last four years. Fox became the 24th head coach in Carolina history on May 7, 1998, when Athletic Director Dick Baddour selected the former UNC player and North Carolina Wesleyan College head coach to lead the Tar Heels into the 21st century. Fox is just third head coach in Chapel Hill since 1947. The 2006 and 2007 American Baseball Coaches Association Atlantic Region Coach of the Year, Fox has set a high standard of success in his first nine years on the job, averaging more than 44 wins per season and guiding the Tar Heels to school record totals of 54 and then 57 victories over the last two seasons. Fox collected his 700th career college coaching victory in 2002, his 800th career win in 2005 and his 900th win this past season. He is just two victories shy of his 400th victory at Carolina. Overall, 37 Tar Heels to play for Fox over the past nine years have been drafted by Major League Baseball organizations, including six first-round selections: Andrew Miller and Daniel Bard in 2006, Russ Adams in 2002, Tyrell Godwin in 2000 and Mike Bynum and Kyle Snyder in 1999. Fifteen Tar Heels from Fox's 2005 team went on to play professionally, marking the most pro players from one Carolina team in a single season. Twenty-three of Fox's former Tar Heel players are currently playing professional baseball. Miller (Tigers), Chris Iannetta (Rockies), Godwin (Nationals), Adam Greenberg (Cubs), Adams (Blue Jays) and Ryan Snare (Rangers), have all made their major league debuts over the last four seasons. Fox has coached 17 first-team All-ACC selections, including first baseman Dustin Ackley, closer Andrew Carignan and shortstop Josh Horton in 2007, as well as outfielder Jay Cox, Horton and left-hander Andrew Miller in 2006 and right-hander Robert Woodard in 2005. Current professional players Daniel Bard, Marshall Hubbard and Chris Iannetta all claimed first-team honors in 2004, as did Jeremy Cleveland in 2003. Tar Heels have earned 21 different All-America honors under Fox, including Ackley and Carignan last season. After breaking through with a CWS runner-up finish in 2006, the Tar Heels matched that feat last season despite losing a pair of first-round selections on the mound in Miller and Bard. Carolina won a school record and NCAA-best 57 games and brought home its second straight ACC Coastal Division title and first ACC tournament title since 1990 in the process. Additionally, the Tar Heels hosted and won an NCAA Regional and Super Regional at Boshamer Stadium and earned the program's second No. 1 national ranking. In Omaha, Carolina dropped its second game before winning three straight to reach the finals for the second straight season. The Tar Heels were a very fundamentally sound team in 2007, posting a school record .974 fielding percentage, while striking out only 295 times and walking 273. Individually, UNC was paced by national freshman of the year Dustin Ackley, who hit .402 with a Carolina record 119 hits, and All-America closer Andrew Carignan, who matched a school record with an NCAA-best 18 saves. Additionally, right-hander Robert Woodard established a school record with his 34th career win and finished his decorated career as the only pitcher in school history in the top 10 in wins, winning percentage, innings and strikeouts. In 2006, the Tar Heels captured the ACC's Coastal Division title and reached the College World Series for the first time since 1989. Carolina won a then-school record 54 games, including a record 38 at home, and hosted its first NCAA Regional at Boshamer Stadium since 1983. The Tar Heels, who also claimed the No. 1 spot in the national rankings for the first time in school history, won their second regional under Fox and then captured the Tuscaloosa Super Regional in dramatic fashion to punch their fifth ticket to Omaha. There, Carolina won its first four games before falling to Oregon State in the championship series, two games to one. Junior left-hander Andrew Miller won Baseball America National Player of the Year honors and the Roger Clemens Award as the nation's top pitcher, and he joined shortstop Josh Horton as an All-America selection. Senior Jonathan Hovis led the nation in ERA at 1.17, while first baseman Chad Flack set Carolina's single-season hit record with 112. From 2002-05, the Tar Heels won 40-plus games in each season and reached the NCAA Tournament every year. The 2003 squad was at its best in the postseason, sweeping through the NCAA Starkville Regional with a 3-0 record, including a pair of wins over host Mississippi State. The regional victory was the first for Carolina since the 1989 team reached the College World Series. Carolina also earned top-10 national rankings in 2005 and in 2004 with a team that was led by All-Americas Marshall Hubbard and Chris Iannetta. Hubbard drove in a school-record 83 runs, while Iannetta, who made his major league debut with the Colorado Rockies in 2006, was one of three finalists for the Johnny Bench Award, presented annually to nation's top collegiate catcher. In a record-setting 2000 season, Carolina posted a 46-17 mark, the second-most victories in a season in school history. Carolina earned the No. 2 seed at the NCAA Regional at Upper Montclair, N.J., and came just one win away from advancing to the NCAA Super Regionals. In his first year on the job, Fox led Carolina to a school-best 16 straight wins to open the 1999 season and, in the midst of going 22-2 to start the year, the Tar Heels peaked at No. 3 the Baseball America rankings. Carolina went on to earn the No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament Palo Alto Regional. Fox came to Carolina after 15 seasons as the head coach at N.C. Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, where he led the Battling Bishops to 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, eight Division III College World Series appearances and the 1989 NCAA Division III national championship. His teams posted 15 consecutive top-20 finishes in the national polls and won 11 Dixie Conference championships. Fox's career record of 540-141-4 at N.C. Wesleyan ranked second in career winning percentage (.792) among all active Division III head coaches at the time of his return to Carolina. Fox was a three-year letterwinner at Carolina as a second baseman from 1976-78, helping lead the Tar Heels to the 1978 College World Series. As a senior, he hit .277, tied for the team lead with six home runs and was named to the College World Series all-tournament team. Fox also played on the Tar Heel junior varsity basketball team under Eddie Fogler in the 1975 and `76 seasons. The 51-year old native of Asheville, N.C., is a 1978 graduate of Carolina with a degree in physical education. He earned his Master of Arts in teaching at UNC in 1979. Fox served as a graduate assistant at Carolina during the 1979 season and was the head coach at Millbrook High School in Raleigh in 1980 and `81 before taking over as N.C. Wesleyan's head coach in September of 1982. He also had served as the Battling Bishops' athletic director since 1985. Fox was named the American Baseball Coaches Association Division III National Coach of the Year in 1989 after leading the Battling Bishops to the national title. He has been named the NCAA South Region Coach of the Year and the Dixie Conference Coach of the Year seven times each. He coached 29 All-Americas at N.C. Wesleyan and 92 percent of his players graduated. The 1974 graduate of East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, N.C., played independent professional baseball for a year after graduating from Carolina before returning to his alma mater as a graduate assistant in 1979. Fox and his wife, Cheryl, have a son, Matthew (21), and a daughter, Morgan (18). |
|||||||||||||||
