Fox Earns Coach of Year Honor From Baseball America

Posted on July 1, 2008

Baseball Coach Mike Fox ’78, who guided the Tar Heels to a third straight trip to the College World Series this summer, has been named national coach of the year by Baseball America magazine.

A two-time American Baseball Coaches Association Atlantic Region Coach of the Year, Fox is the first UNC baseball coach to claim national coaching honors and the first Atlantic Coast Conference skipper to be honored by Baseball America.

Fox’s team posted a 54-14 record this year for its third straight 50-win season. The Tar Heels hosted and captured NCAA regional and super regional titles and then went 3-2 in Omaha to earn a third-place finish. UNC has posted top-three national finishes in each of the past three seasons.

With its home field under construction, Carolina played all 36 home games and practiced at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, where it logged a 30-6 record.

UNC also went 22-7 in ACC play and did not lose an ACC weekend series for the first time since the league went to its three-game weekend series schedule in 1990. Carolina was ranked in the nation’s top five for the entire season and earned the first consensus No. 1 ranking in program history following a series victory at then-No. 1 Miami to close the regular season.

Fox also guided sophomores Dustin Ackley, Tim Fedroff, Kyle Seager and Alex White to All-America honors, giving the Tar Heels four All-America selections for the first time in school history. White also was named ACC Pitcher of the Year, as he headlined a UNC pitching staff that ranked statistically as the nation’s best.

Fox, who has a 451-190-1 record in 10 seasons in Chapel Hill, has led Carolina to unprecedented success in the past three seasons. The Tar Heels have posted the top three victory totals in school history (54, 57 and 54) and lead the country with 165 wins from 2006-08.

UNC has hosted an NCAA regional in each of the past three years and joined Florida State as the only ACC clubs to make three straight trips to the CWS while a member of the league.

The Heels have won 11 games in the series over the past three years, and Fox, who is one of just six men to play in Omaha and then coach his alma mater back to the CWS, has been a part of all 13 UNC victories. He was a member of the Tar Heels’ 1978 CWS club.

Fox’s career record is 982-331-5, including time at N.C. Wesleyan.

In addition to Fox’s honor, freshman right-hander Matt Harvey was named to Baseball America‘s Freshman All-America second team. The Mystic, Conn., native went 7-2 with a 2.79 ERA and 80 strikeouts as a rookie.

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Related coverage is available online:

• ‘That’s How Hard It Is’: Coach Reflects on Third Season to End at College World Series
  June 30, 2008, GAA Publications news report
• Tar Heels Drop in Directors’ Cup Standings, Still Lead ACC
  June 27, 2008, GAA Publications news report
• Second Loss to Fresno State Keeps Heels Out of Finals
  June 23, 2008, GAA Publications news report
• Unbeaten and Champion – the Fifth for Field Hockey
  Nov. 29, 2007, GAA Publications news report
• Carolina Third Nationally In All-Sport Competition
  June 30, 2007, GAA Publications news report

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