Fox tales in San Diego

10-23-2004

By Tom Shanahan, San Diego Hall of Champions

Carolina Panthers Head Coach John Fox is talking with his players these days about his time as a Chargers assistant coach in 1992, the first of two seasons the San Diegan from Castle Park High and San Diego State spent on Bobby Ross’ staff. It’s not so much Fox is getting soft and sentimental as he is trying to inspire his team.

In 1992, Fox was the Chargers’ secondary coach when San Diego rallied from a 0-4 start to win 11 of 12 en route to an AFC West title. They beat wild-card entry Kansas City in the first round of the playoffs.

“Absolutely, that was brought up a great deal this week,” Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme said.

Fox, who grew up a Chargers fan, is trying to rally his 1-4 Panthers, the defending NFC Champions who lost in last year’s Super Bowl to New England, when they face the 3-3 Bolts Sunday in Charlotte, N.C.

“I think guys continued to work hard,” Fox said of overcoming the 0-4 start. “In this game, you only get confidence when you win. If you’re not winning, it’s hard to get confidence. It starts in practice and your preparation. I thought that was the key back in ‘92.”

Fox says coaching the Bolts was a special time in his life because he grew up a Chargers fan.

“It was great for me,” he said. “I was coming home. It was the first time professionally in coaching that I had gone back to San Diego. I had the great fortune of working with Bobby Beathard, Bobby Ross and, of course, the Spanos family. I thought it was a great opportunity. It was definitely nice being back in San Diego.”

Fox’s high school coach, Gil Warren, remembers Fox, a tight end and defensive back at Castle Park in the 1970s, as an overachiever on the field with a passion for understanding the game.

“John was always a battler,” said Warren, now the head coach at Southwest High. “Just before we were going to play our rival, Sweetwater, John broke his collar bone. I remember he was crying – not because of the pain; he was a tough kid – because he knew he wasn’t going to play against Sweetwater. He never missed a practice or meeting, although he couldn’t play.”

Fox watched the first game he missed while injured in street clothes, but after that he dressed in full uniform, even though he couldn’t play.

“That was one of the worst times of my life when I couldn’t play football,” Fox once said of his need to feel part of the team.

Warren said he often used Fox as an inspiration for his Castle Park athletes during locker-room talks. He talked about Fox becoming a starting safety in 1976 at San Diego State – his teammates were safety Herman Edwards, the New York Jets head coach, and quarterback Tom Craft, SDSU’s head coach – after playing two years at Southwestern College and then walking-on at SDSU.

“I tell our kids that John Fox was sitting in the same room just like you are,” Warren said. “He didn’t have a lot of talent, but he was a hard worker who didn’t give up.”

Fox often credits the influence of Warren and his then-assistants at Castle Park, Bing Dawson (still a Castle Park assistant) and Jan Chapman, for his success as a football coach.

“They treated everything with class,” Fox said. “They had a lot of pride in their program. I thought they had great coaches, particularly for the high school level. There was a lot of pride in what we were doing there and it was all a very positive experience for me.”

Fox stills talks with Warren and other old San Diego friends. When the San Diego State job opened up in 2002, an SDSU booster asked Warren to call Fox and learn his interest in coaching his alma mater. But Fox, then the New York Giants defensive coordinator, was already on the short list for the head job with the Panthers and other NFL teams.

“I don’t get to go back to San Diego, obviously, because they’re coming here,” Fox said of Sunday’s game. “I have great, fond memories of my time with the Chargers. And I have a great affection for San Diego, where I went to college and grew up. I like getting back there. Some of my best friends are there. But they’re going to try to kick my brains in Sunday, and I have to try to kick their brains in.”

One of the times when Fox was invited back to San Diego but didn’t make the trip was last winter when he was inducted into the Sweetwater Union High School District Hall of Fame. Fox asked Warren to accept the award for him.

“I told everyone John was a little busy at the time,” Warren said. “That was the week of the Super Bowl.”