Despite his role in the McKeever fiasco, I agree that Knowlton's hires have been high character people. Mark Fox is a high character guy, just not a good enough basketball coach.
Despite his role in the McKeever fiasco, I agree that Knowlton's hires have been high character people. Mark Fox is a high character guy, just not a good enough basketball coach.
Mark Fox took the blame plenty of times, but maybe not for the real reasons they were losing (.I.e. recruiting and his inflexible system). Coaching press conferences are stupid. If you discuss player flaws you are seen as throwing your guys under the bus. Yet you are expected to be responsible even in situations that coaches cannot control. It's easy to sit behind your TV and pretend you know the answers, but that's just fantasy.
Mark Fox is not a bad guy. He inherited a bad situation that he failed to resolve, and it snowballed. He was the wrong guy at the wrong time.
I have direct reports, and they're not always perfect. When I'm in manager meetings, it's expected I take responsibility for their fuck ups. In the end, it is my job to make sure everyone is performing as consistently as possible. Mark Fox was making exponentially more than I do, and so I have little pity for situations out of his control. In the end, he gets paid for everything to roll up to him.
What is the proof that Mark Fox is a high character guy. Seemed like a whiny baby who couldn't coach the sport he is paid to, and would then blame his players or injuries for his lack of success. Seems like a loser with low character to me.
Being utterly incompetent as a basketball coach isn't a character flaw but it's 100% grounds for termination as a basketball coach. Keep in mind how low the bar can be when it comes to coaches.
I don't think Fox handled the struggle well at all but he ran a scandal-free albeit poorly-coached program with players who seem like decent human beings....that had an embarrassingly bad W/L record. He's not remotely in the same moral universe as the low-character guys on this list.
Avoiding scandals doesn't make you a high-character guy. The term high-character guy is pretty vague, but one attribute I would think a person would have to have to be considered one is the ability to uplift those around them. My general understanding from watching him coach was that Mark Fox did not uplift his player. Obviously that can be hard with a losing record but he seemed to be angry and with excuses sitting in his back pocket, instead of trying to teach and coach his players. Coaches are educators, and he seemed to be a pretty poor one.
I think we just have different definitions/bars/cutoffs but agree that Fox was absolutely not effective as a coach or a motivator. You can trust your kids with him as long as he's not trying to teach them basketball.
Despite his role in the McKeever fiasco, I agree that Knowlton's hires have been high character people. Mark Fox is a high character guy, just not a good enough basketball coach.
Do high character guys blame everyone but themselves for their failure to reach expectations?
Mark Fox took the blame plenty of times, but maybe not for the real reasons they were losing (.I.e. recruiting and his inflexible system). Coaching press conferences are stupid. If you discuss player flaws you are seen as throwing your guys under the bus. Yet you are expected to be responsible even in situations that coaches cannot control. It's easy to sit behind your TV and pretend you know the answers, but that's just fantasy.
Mark Fox is not a bad guy. He inherited a bad situation that he failed to resolve, and it snowballed. He was the wrong guy at the wrong time.
hold on, as a former business owner and manger let me just sit back and laugh at this, "Mark Fox took the blame plenty of times, ...."
Hold on, I'm not done yet.....
I have direct reports, and they're not always perfect. When I'm in manager meetings, it's expected I take responsibility for their fuck ups. In the end, it is my job to make sure everyone is performing as consistently as possible. Mark Fox was making exponentially more than I do, and so I have little pity for situations out of his control. In the end, he gets paid for everything to roll up to him.
I think he's a wrong guy at all times
What is the proof that Mark Fox is a high character guy. Seemed like a whiny baby who couldn't coach the sport he is paid to, and would then blame his players or injuries for his lack of success. Seems like a loser with low character to me.
Being utterly incompetent as a basketball coach isn't a character flaw but it's 100% grounds for termination as a basketball coach. Keep in mind how low the bar can be when it comes to coaches.
I don't think Fox handled the struggle well at all but he ran a scandal-free albeit poorly-coached program with players who seem like decent human beings....that had an embarrassingly bad W/L record. He's not remotely in the same moral universe as the low-character guys on this list.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1342175-college-basketball-power-ranking-the-20-scandals-that-rocked-the-cbb-universe
Avoiding scandals doesn't make you a high-character guy. The term high-character guy is pretty vague, but one attribute I would think a person would have to have to be considered one is the ability to uplift those around them. My general understanding from watching him coach was that Mark Fox did not uplift his player. Obviously that can be hard with a losing record but he seemed to be angry and with excuses sitting in his back pocket, instead of trying to teach and coach his players. Coaches are educators, and he seemed to be a pretty poor one.
I think we just have different definitions/bars/cutoffs but agree that Fox was absolutely not effective as a coach or a motivator. You can trust your kids with him as long as he's not trying to teach them basketball.