Coach Fox (UNC)-Are there others like him?

Its a great topic and frankly, I think some stories need to be told and some kudos given out. Reading comments about Coach Fox made me realize, once again, that amateur baseball is full of quality gentlemen, who live their lives by inspiring codes of conduct and behavior. He is not alone.

Your son could do no better than being mentored by Coach Tony Robichaux. He will accept nothing less than your best effort on and off the field, insist his players function as gentlemen, and will stop at nothing for them to reach their potential academicly and athleticly. He is a straight shooter that holds players to very high standards. His staff is cut from the same solid cloth.

Coach Robe

I'm with Dad04 on this one. As parents and players sometimes an initial search for colleges is based on our favorite school, location, conference/national prominence, or for the good reason of academics. I think what is many times overlooked is the character of a head coach and his entire staff. I know I did.

My son was fortunate enough to have a nice choice of programs and being from the tundra I thought it would be in his best interest to head South or West. He went South, but only 160 miles to Downtown Chicago at the University of Illinois-Chicago. I was concerned until he told me why, and that reason was Coach Dee. Mike Dee is not the kind of person I would hang out with for the rest of my life but I'm sure thats more of an rz1 issue . However, if you have to send your 17-18 year away, Coach Dee is the type of person you would want your son to answer to. A disiplinarion, when needed; ornery at times, sure; a good teacher, definitely. But his best traits are that he is academically minded, honest to the core, and will always be there to watch his players back, or pick them up if they fall. Besides the fact he really knows his baseball.

While taking nothing away from "fair weather" schools a Northern coach has to be able to sell ice to an Eskimo and as a result needs to sell himself since he cannot rely on selling climate or program comparisions. In 8 years at UIC Mike Dee has done that with good people and quality players. I'm glad my son was a lot smarter me when those school choices had to be made.

Mike Dee