Mark Fox sees Stegeman on the visiting team against Georgia Basketball

The Kentucky team bus rolled into Stegeman Coliseum on Tuesday around 5:30 p.m.

Mark Fox entered the arena again as coach, this time with the visiting team. It’s been nearly seven years since his basketball coaching career at Georgia ended.

“There’s obviously a lot of emotions,” Fox, standing outside the visiting coaches’ locker room, told the Athens Banner-Herald. “I had a great decade in this community. Lots of great memories in this building. A lot of emotions for sure.”

Fox is in his first season as a Kentucky associate coach under new coach Mark Pope and reunites with the former Bulldogs staff member and captain on the Wildcats’ 1996 national championship team.

This street game meant meeting good friends.

Former Georgia football coach Mark Richt stopped by the Wildcats’ team hotel in downtown Athens earlier in the day and Fox said they had “a great hour” together. Former women’s basketball coach Andy Landers was at the shootaround in Kentucky on Monday night after the team flew into town.

He said he also had the opportunity to meet retired Georgia sports information director Claude Felton and longtime sports staffers Glada Horvat and Emily Deitz. He said he expects to see some of his former players at the game Tuesday night.

“I saw people everywhere and they were so good to me,” Fox said of the Georgia fans who have greeted him since he left the area after a year off as a college coach during the 2018-19 season. “They were so kind to me and welcomed me back.”

His only time back in Stegeman before this week was in 2018, when his son Parker graduated from Oconee County High.

A few months earlier, he was fired as Georgia coach after nine seasons, including five postseason appearances – two in the NCAA and three in the NIT. At Georgia, he was 163-133 overall.

Fox was Cal’s coach for four seasons from 2019 to 2023, increasing his head coaching record from 38-87 to 324-263 in 18 seasons, including his time at Nevada.

He served as a support staff member at Georgetown last season before returning to the SEC on Pope’s staff after Kentucky hired the former BYU coach to replace John Calipari.

Pope worked at Fox in Georgia after dropping out of medical school and served as director of basketball operations during Fox’s first season in 2009-10.

“Suddenly I was the oldest person in every room,” said Fox, who turns 56 on Monday. “I don’t know when that happened. …This league is great. It’s invigorating.”

Other former Georgia head coaches have returned to Stegeman in recent years.

Dennis Felton, who led the Bulldogs to an improbable, tornado-interrupted SEC tournament championship, was back in 2022 as a George Mason assistant.

Jim Harrick quietly returned as UGA coach last month for the first time since being fired as UGA coach in 2003.

Fox’s 163 wins trail only Hugh Durham (297 wins) and Herman Stegeman (170) as Georgia coaches.

“Seeing him on the other side of the court — it was kind of weird for a minute,” former Georgia assistant Jonas Hayes said after his Georgia State team lost 105-76 at Kentucky on Nov. 29. “But he’s one hell of a guy. (Kentucky) has a good one, you have no idea.”

Fox went 18-15 in its final season in Athens. He led Georgia to a top-three finish in the SEC in 2014 and 2015, but never won an NCAA Tournament game in two appearances with the Bulldogs.

“We tried to do the best we could under the circumstances,” he said. “We took over a program that needed to be overhauled. I think we have made great progress. …I am proud of the time we spent here. I look back with gratitude and the way people welcomed me makes me feel like what we did was appreciated.”

The Georgia team, which entered Tuesday at 12-2 under Mike White, could be the first team since Fox in 2015 to reach the NCAA Tournament.

“They have a good team,” Fox said. “Mike did a good job. He has a talented team. He has done a good job in this era of portal and NIL. He should have a good team, and he does.”

Fox said that during Monday’s shooting in Kentucky, initially the lights weren’t on and someone asked him where the light switch was.

“I had to make a few calls to remember where that was,” said Fox, who said the field looks very different now but the rest of the arena looks similar.

Fox said in 2023 the “alignment” under then-athletic director Greg McGarity wasn’t quite where it needed to be. White said he got the support he needed.

Fox added that he has heard from current Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks since he and Georgia parted ways.

“Josh gave me a great call,” he said. “I won’t give away any details, but changes are happening. That is her decision. When there is a change, the new coaches receive some improvements. They made a much bigger commitment, that was their decision. You always ask yourself why they didn’t do that, why you were there, but that’s living in the negative, in a negative perspective, and I don’t do that.”

UGA athletics doctor Fred Reifsteck stopped to greet Fox while he was being interviewed.

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Mark Fox sees Stegeman on the visiting team against Georgia Basketball

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