There was at least one eyebrow-raising revelation from Mark Fox’s press conference Sunday with reporters at Georgia’s basketball facility.
Apparently, he and athletic director Greg McGarity weren’t always necessarily on the same page.
“I will say what I told our athletic director, Greg. I said you need to have someone you will have a partnership with. If you can’t have it with me, then maybe you can have it with the next coach,” Fox told reporters. “I obviously felt like we were continuing to make progress. I wasn’t pleased that we missed the tournament this year, that was my responsibility and I’ll take that. It comes with the territory, but there’s a lot of things that we felt good about. I’m not going to spend a lot of time looking back, I’m really not. I’m going to spend most of my energy moving forward.”
Fox was asked if he felt the feeling was mutual.
“That will probably be a point where we agree to disagree,” he said. “But as I just said, he asked if there was something I could say to help him move it forward and I said find somebody you can have a great partnership with. That’s really the only thing I left him with. I don’t have any ill-will toward anybody, I really don’t. I think it’s important for this program to take the next step.”
There’s more.
Although rumors over Fox’s future really started to pick up steam in recent weeks, the former Bulldog coach said he’s actually been concerned about his job a lot longer than that.
“My first inkling – honestly, March of 2014, if you want my honest opinion,” he said. “I felt from that point forward that I wasn’t as secure as I wanted to be, but that comes with the territory. It really does. We did our best to try and enhance the tradition of this place and do it the right way. At the end of the day, we didn’t win enough games in their mind.”
Fox met with the team Saturday afternoon to inform them collectively of McGarity’s decision.
“I told them that nobody on our team has an issue as we leave and they shouldn’t create issues for the new coach when he comes in,” Fox said. “I talked to them about making sure they finished their education and told them how hard they’re going to need to work and I still believe in them. I had a very honest conversation with them of how I will always expect them to function.”
Fox added he has no regrets with how he approached his job.
With the sport of college basketball in the midst of investigations by both the FBI and the NCAA, he’s proud of the way he conducted his business on and off the court.
He also realizes his outspokenness against what’s happening in the game has probably lost him some allies
“I think that our game is certainly in need of some changes to the system, but while the system’s in place, your hope is that everybody is within the rules,” Fox said. “They’re never going to, so, obviously, in today’s climate, some are celebrating that I’m looking for work. But I’m just going to worry about what we do and let everybody else judge the rest of it.”
Fox said he’ll leave Athens with plenty of good memories.
“Probably my greatest was winning at Mizzou after my dad passed. But there’s a lot of them. There were a lot of good times, far more good times than bad,” he said. “Whether it’s winning on the road at certain places, far more good times than bad. But winning at Mizzou after that will probably be my favorite.”
He plans on coaching again.
“I’ve had some thoughts of what I’d like to do. I still want to coach and coach at a place where we can have success,” Fox said. “I’ve had some calls already. I don’t know if we’ll make any decisions anytime soon, but it’s in my blood. I’m a coach, I’m an educator. How quickly I’ll jump back in the saddle, I don’t know, but I hope that one day I’ll have the opportunity to do it again.”
