Mike Fox is an American retired

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

coach. Fox was the

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

head baseball coach for 22 seasons and is considered one of the school's most successful coaches, having led the

Tar Heels Tar Heel is a nickname applied to the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is also the nickname of the University of North Carolina athletic teams, students, alumni, and fans. The origins of the Tar Heel nickname trace back to North Carolina's promi ...

to seven

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...

appearances, including four consecutive from

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. Over his 37-year head coaching career, he compiled a 1,487–547–5 record (.731 winning percentage). Fox was named to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.

Playing career

Fox played second base for the Tar Heels from 1976–1978. As a senior, he hit .277, tied for the team lead with six home runs. He led the Tar Heels to the 1978 College World Series and was named a member of the CWS All-Tournament Team. Fox also played on the UNC Junior Varsity Basketball team under

Eddie Fogler Eddie Fogler (born June 12, 1948) is an American retired college basketball player and coach. He played for the University of North Carolina from 1967 to 1970 where he played as a point guard on two NCAA Final Four teams. Fogler was an All-Cit ...

in the 1975 and '76 seasons. Fox played independent professional baseball for a year after graduating from Carolina before returning to his alma mater as a graduate assistant in 1979.

Coaching career

North Carolina Wesleyan

Fox coached at North Carolina Wesleyan from 1983 until 1998. Fox led the Battling Bishops to eight trips to the Division III College World Series, and in 1989, his team won the NCAA Division III College World Series. Fox's career record of 539-141-4 at N.C. Wesleyan ranked second in career winning percentage (.791) among all active Division III head coaches at the time of his return to Carolina.

University of North Carolina

Mike Fox was hired as head coach of the

North Carolina Tar Heels baseball The North Carolina Tar Heels baseball team, commonly referred to as Carolina, represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in NCAA Division I college baseball. They compete in the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference. ...

team on May 7, 1998, becoming the 24th head baseball coach in the history of the school, and only its third coach since 1947. In

and 2007, he led North Carolina to back-to-back 2nd-place finishes at the

. Fox would lead Carolina to another five College World Series appearances in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

, and

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

. Fox's teams in 2007, 2013 and 2018 won ACC championships. In 2008, he was named the National Coach of the Year by

Baseball America ''Baseball America'' is a sports enterprise that covers baseball at every level, including MLB, with a particular focus on up-and-coming players in the MiLB, college, high school, and international leagues. It is currently published in the form o ...

, and in 2018, he was named ACC Coach of the Year. On August 7, 2020, Mike Fox retired and Scott Forbes, an assistant on Fox's staff for 19 seasons was named his successor. After 22 seasons, Fox retired as the winningest coach in Carolina Baseball history, with a record of 948-406-1.

Personal

Fox attended

East Mecklenburg High School East Mecklenburg High School is a public secondary school in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, and one of 21 high schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system. The principal of the school is Richard "Rick" Parker. East Mecklenburg ...

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

He currently lives in

Chapel Hill Chapel Hill or Chapelhill may refer to: Places Antarctica * Chapel Hill (Antarctica) Australia *Chapel Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Chapel Hill, South Australia, in the Mount Barker council area Canada * Chapel Hill, Ottawa, a neighbo ...

with his wife Cheryl. Mike has a son, Matthew (36), daughter Morgan (32), son-in-law Tyler (33) and three grandchildren.

Head coaching record

References

External links

North Carolina profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Mike Year of birth missing (living people) Living people North Carolina Tar Heels baseball coaches North Carolina Tar Heels baseball players North Carolina Wesleyan Battling Bishops baseball coaches Baseball players from Charlotte, North Carolina