NORTH AUGUSTA --- As of July 1, Mark Fox is officially moved out of his hotel room on the Georgia campus and into his new home with his wife and two young children.
That doesn't mean he's not still living out of suitcases.
"I've slept in the house two nights since we moved in," said the first-year Georgia basketball coach from the recruiting road Monday at the Peach Jam.
Fox has been in nonstop rebuilding mode since being hired to replace the fired Dennis Felton on April 3. He had only seven days to lock down his first recruits while releasing any players who opted to leave. With only one senior on his roster, he intentionally left room for staggered growth the next year.
At the Peach Jam, Fox was playing catch-up with recruits who have been on other teams' watch lists for years. What he mines from these emerging young stars will determine the fate of his future and the program's acceptance by fans turned off by seven years of relative failures.
"It has to start with our players and those kids that play basketball," Fox said. "Certainly you're out trying to recruit fans and bring back the energy, but the responsibility starts with our team and our coaches to play basketball in a way that makes it attractive. That's not fair to our fans to say we're going to rebuild but you come back first."
Many Georgia fans probably had never heard of Fox before he was introduced by Athletic Director Damon Evans in the spring. For all of the postseason success he had in five years at the helm of Nevada, he didn't generate a lot of attention in the Southeast. That he's never lived or coached east of the Mississippi River made him a foreign commodity in and around the Southeastern Conference.
"He knows how to win, and he knows players," said David Carter, Fox's former assistant coach who succeeded him at Nevada. "Six months or 12 months from now, people will realize he's a good coach and will do a great job there."
Fox is undeterred by his lack of regional notoriety. "For me it's not about being the homecoming king or queen," he said. "It's about helping young people become productive members of society, mesh them together as a basketball team and making them better players."
If you didn't know anything about Fox, just turn on your laptop. "With the Internet it's pretty easy to find out what someone's done and where they've been," he said.
Fox's success at Nevada -- where he posted five consecutive 20-win seasons, won four Western Athletic Conference titles, qualified for three NCAA Tournaments and reached the second round twice -- is well documented. So is his reputed temper, which got him some unflattering press after he reportedly cursed and pursued game officials and a police officer off the court after losing in the 2007 WAC Tournament.
"He's a competitor and gets caught up in the moment, and he fights for his players," Carter said. "That's all you can ask for from a head coach."
Fox's intensity is not exactly the same image presented by Georgia's popular football coach Mark Richt, whom Fox has been mining for advice on the summer booster tour.
"I've never been with him in a competitive environment," Fox said of Richt. "We've really had a lot of fun traveling the Bulldog circuit. He's a good man, and he understands the state and the university. He coaches a different game but as coaches we can learn from somebody in a another sport. He'll certainly be a good resource for me."
Fox said he believes Athens is a nice fit for him. He was born and raised in the small town of Garden City, Kan. His wife, Cindy, was born in Augusta when her father was stationed at Fort Gordon. Coming from Reno, Nev. -- the biggest little city on the world -- hasn't been much of a culture shock for him.
"The Georgia people have been very welcoming," he said. "I grew up in a small town in Kansas, and it reminds me of a lot of the good people there. It's really been a pretty easy transition for us to this point."
Now comes all the hard stuff of building a program that -- aside from one flukish postseason -- hasn't been NCAA Tournament-worthy since Jim Harrick left in scandal seven years ago. It starts in places such as Riverview Park, where players that might not have given him a second look when he wore Nevada colors now take notice of the red-and-black "G" on his chest.
"Recruiting is about building relationships," Fox said. "That takes time, but this is certainly a great state to recruit to and from."
As a coach who has won NCAA Tournament games before, Fox feels no more pressure than what he puts on himself. But generating basketball buzz at a football school will take time and a lot of energy.
"It's not easy to create a winning culture and tradition, but it is possible," he said. "I welcome the challenge. What I want people to see is a team that plays hard, acts right and plays with a sense of pride for what's written across their chest. There's a name on the back of the jersey, but if they play for what's on the front that's what we're more concerned about."
If he can accomplish that, people will get to know Fox and he'll get to settle down in his new home.
Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.
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