CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—Spend a few minutes talking with Mike Fox and the North Carolina coach will praise everyone around him, from assistant coaches to office secretaries and groundskeepers.
He isn’t nearly so effusive about his impact on the Tar Heels program.
“I’m a part of a big group here,” Fox said. “Yes, I’m the head coach. And I get sometimes way too much of the credit.”
Maybe. But there’s no denying his decade of work, which has his alma mater headed back to Omaha for a fourth straight appearance in the College World Series. North Carolina plays its first game Sunday against Arizona State.
Fox can’t just blend into the background like he wants. After all, somebody had to create the environment that persuaded families to send their sons to play in Chapel Hill. Somebody had to show the steady hand that managed his players’ fears on the diamond and egos off it. And someone had to get the most out of that talent, particularly in the postseason.
In 11 seasons under Fox, the Tar Heels (47-16) have reached the NCAA tournament 10 times while averaging 45 victories a year. In the 11 seasons prior, the Tar Heels averaged about 38 wins and reached the NCAAs five times with one CWS appearance.
Before this four-year Series streak—which is the first time an Atlantic Coast Conference school has done that—the Tar Heels hadn’t been to Omaha since 1989. Their other CWS appearances came in 1960, 1966 and 1978, with Fox playing second base for that ’78 squad.
“He brings in the right type of guys who can play for him on the field and also do things right off the field,” said pitcher Alex White, one of the team’s two first-round picks in Tuesday’s amateur draft. “He knows how to win. … Everybody enjoys playing for him. He’s just one of those guys that everybody wants to be around.”
This year’s group won all five NCAA tournament games by a combined score of 50-12. East Carolina coach Billy Godwin, whose Pirates were swept by the Tar Heels in last weekend’s super regionals, was an assistant to Fox at Division III North Carolina Wesleyan and was glad to see his friend make it back to Omaha.
“Mike is very passionate about what he does,” Godwin said. “He teaches discipline. He recruits the right kind of guys. He’s an extremely hard worker and has an outstanding staff. I think when you put those things together, that breeds success.”
The biggest worry for Fox, 53, might be tempering expectations. The Tar Heels were a few outs away from winning their first national championship before finishing as runner-up to Oregon State in 2006, then was second to the Beavers again the following season. Last year, the Tar Heels lost to Fresno State with a berth in the championship round at stake.
Ask Fox whether his team has to win this time, and it’s one of the few times the coach ever strays from his relaxed, easygoing demeanor. He said that motivation might have been the team’s undoing in ’07.
“That doesn’t work in most sports and it doesn’t work in baseball,” he said. “I mean, of course, I would love to win a national championship. I’d love for this team to do it and for these kids to experience it. That’s a given.
“But if we fall short and if we don’t get it done, if a ball trickles over the third-base bag in the ninth inning and we lose by a run because of two inches, how can you come back and say, ‘Well, we failed.’ I’m just not going to.”
It’s an attitude rooted in Fox’s time at Wesleyan in Rocky Mount, where he spent 15 years and won a national championship in 1989 before coming here.
He talks often about the importance of players who do the right thing—down to saying “thank you”—and frequently reminding them that they have it pretty good as Division I athletes. That’s particularly true now that the Tar Heels are playing in new Boshamer Stadium, which opened this year on the site of the old campus stadium.
He also believes coaching is about more than just wins, even if the competitor inside him screams otherwise.
“When I do finally hang it up, I do not want people to say, ‘He coached this many years and he won this many games,'” Fox said. “I’m going to write my own last one. I’m going to say, ‘We tried to do this and we tried to do that and we helped this young man graduate.’ Because at the end of the day—as corny as all that sounds—that’s what coaching is. That’s what you remember.”
