Chris Fox molded Syracuse cross country from one of the worst college programs into a national powerhouse

This past Christmas, Kristy Johnston designed a trophy room for her husband, Syracuse cross country head coach Chris Fox. Ten months later, sitting on a desk and waiting to be nailed up are Big East Championships, Atlantic Coast Conference Championships and Coach of the Year awards. For now, only one plaque hangs. A plaque from a 1998 relay race in Fox’s home state of West Virginia.

Johnston and Fox competed on different teams in a race including kayaking, biking and running. The couple each ran the last leg for their teams. Johnston beat her husband, and the plaque on the wall is hers.

“Did she tell you she had a two-minute lead in a two-mile race?” Fox said, chuckling. “And I was well into retirement.”

After spending 18 years as an Olympic trial-level runner, Fox became a full-time coach. He worked at North Carolina, George Washington and Auburn before arriving at Syracuse. Now, he’s been here 13 years and has brought seven conference championships and the first cross-country national title since 1951, to a program he once called “not very good.” The success has even prompted praise from SU head men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim, who has the most wins of anyone in Syracuse sports history.

“Boeheim would always say to me,” former director of athletics Daryl Gross said. “‘Chris Fox is the best coach in the department.’”

When Fox learned of the compliment, he laughed and said: “That’s a load of crap.”

***

Fox has wanted to coach since he was 13. In seventh grade, he loved basketball and football, but was “really, really, really tiny,” he said. He discovered size didn’t matter in running.

“I found something I could do well by just working hard,” Fox said. “And I knew from that point on that I wanted to be a track coach.”

Fox needed to work tirelessly to turn SU around. Syracuse was not a historic program. The Orange hadn’t made it to the NCAA cross country championship since 1974. The team had just completed its best Big East finish ever: Fifth-place in 2004. But Gross, SU’s new athletic director at the time, committed to rebuilding the program. His goal was a top-three team in the Big East. In 2005, he hired Fox as Syracuse’s cross-country coach and director of track and field.

“We had people all the time saying ‘Are you crazy?’” Johnston said. “You go on Let’s Run and they’d say, ‘Coach Fox is going to Syracuse? That’s the craziest move ever.’”

But the Orange struggled in Fox’s first season at the helm. The team fell to 10th-place in the Big East, but Fox still believed that year laid a foundation. After the conference championship, Fox approached Gross about his future plans.

“He’s like, ‘We’re going to have a top-10 program here every year,’” Gross said. “And I’m looking at him like, ‘Did I just hear this?’”

Gradually, Fox changed the culture of the program by instilling to his players a motto: “Taking Care of Business.” Or just “TCB.” The acronym means don’t drink during the season. Sleep well. Eat right. Do what Coach says during practice. “We knew we could follow Fox’s words, advice and training blindly,” former SU runner Martin Hehir said. “He would get us where we needed to be.”

In 2006, the Orange finished fifth in the conference. And it stayed there in 2007. And 2008. Meanwhile, other schools tried to woo Fox away, because they had heard about his reputation. Notre Dame, Gross said, worked tirelessly to flip Fox. Despite stagnation in the standings, Fox said he never considered leaving.

In 2009, everything changed.

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On Oct. 3, the then-unranked Orange outpaced No. 4 Wisconsin and No. 10 Georgetown at the inaugural Wisconsin Adidas Invitational.

“Huge win for us.” Fox said. “First time we’d done anything at all at that level.”

Fox had 28 days until the Big East Championship, the measuring stick Gross established when hiring Fox. When the time came, SU trekked to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Marquette hosted the conference championship. That Halloween, rain swallowed the course, turning it into a muddy swamp.

Still, though, the Orange jumped out ahead from the gun and never looked back. Nearly halfway into the 10000-meter race, Villanova head coach Marcus O’Sullivan walked up to Fox.

“You guys won it already,” Fox remembered O’Sullivan saying.

SU had never won the Big East Championship, but just four years into Fox’s tenure, he had vaulted the Orange from one of the Big East’s worst teams to the best.

Then, things really began to turn.

The Orange won its conference again in 2010, and again in 2012, and again in 2013. But the national recognition still eluded him.

***

Syracuse wanted Martin Hehir, but Hehir didn’t want Syracuse.

As a Washingtonville (New York) High School senior, Hehir said, several more prestigious programs had offered him. Hehir ignored three recruiting phone calls from SU assistant coach Brian Bell.

“(Fox) always said, ‘Thanks for picking up the fourth phone call,’” Hehir said.

When Bell and Hehir finally talked, the high schooler relented to come for a visit. In January 2011, Hehir stopped in at Manley Field House and what he heard instantly hooked him. Fox didn’t sugarcoat anything. He didn’t flash facilities or gear, or promise Olympic teams and shoe contracts. He didn’t play the recruiting game, Hehir said, and neither Fox nor Bell sounded “like used car salesmen.”

In the years since, Fox and Bell continued to succeed with that approach. Syracuse’s most accomplished runner ever, senior Justyn Knight, said he chose SU because Fox wasn’t like every other coach “say(ing) anything to get you.”

Fox spoke to Hehir plainly: Syracuse wasn’t a premier program, but it would be soon.

Hehir bought in.

During Hehir’s freshman year, Fox did something that still resonates with Hehir. After his first race, a second-place finish, Fox entered him into a 3000-meter race in Seattle with the country’s best runners. From the gun, Hehir knew he stood no chance.

“Gosh, I was awful,” Hehir said. “I finished that race and couldn’t have been more disappointed in myself.”

After he crossed the finish line, Hehir waded through the crowd to find his coach. Hehir feared he had just ruined his SU career with the poor showing. Fox, when Hehir finally found him, was grinning wide. Hehir was pissed. He remembered their exchange like this:

“Why are you smiling?” Hehir said. “I just ran so badly.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Fox responded. “We just came out here and tried something.”

“Quit smiling at me,” Hehir said. “I just crapped myself out there.”

Six years later, Hehir now appreciates the perspective. It was one race, he said.

And after that race, Hehir blossomed into Syracuse’s first modern superstar, earning First-Team Big East honors as a freshman and eventually breaking the school record in the 10K.

Hehir has been called the Pearl Washington of SU running for his leadership in the transition from a solid team to a national power.

 With Hehir in the field, Fox began to grow SU into a national power. But it wasn’t just the conference championships bringing talented runners to central New York, it was the idea of running for Fox and his coaching staff.

“In Fox we trust,” Hehir said.

***

In 2014, Fox hit a recruiting gold rush, landing Knight and now-SU senior Colin Bennie to headline one of the top freshman classes in the country. From 2009 to 2012, the Orange had finished either 14th or 15th at the NCAA championships. In 2013, SU’s first year in the ACC, the team finished 10th.

But pairing Knight and Bennie with Hehir elevated the program into territory the Orange hadn’t been in since before Fox was born. That season, the Orange won its second consecutive ACC title and finished fifth at NCAAs.

“We had a hard time getting over the hump,” Fox said.  “We felt like we were a seventh- or eighth-place team, and we kept finishing 10 to 15. But that fifth-place finish really sealed the deal.”

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Most important from that season, a core emerged. In 2015, the Orange returned its top contributors. Hehir served as the team’s senior leader. Knight and Bennie proved themselves better than just two of the country’s top underclassmen. Philo Germano, once a walk-on, became a key cog.

That season, the Orange won the Wisconsin Invitational, the ACC Championship and the NCAA Northeast Regional. But those were warmups. Everyone focused on Louisville, Kentucky, and the NCAA Championship. Colorado entered heavy favorites. The two-time defending champions returned almost its entire core.

Early on Nov. 21, the morning of the race, Fox didn’t make a special speech. It was the same as any other day, players said.

“That was when he did the least,” Hehir said. “At that point, the training is done. The coaching is done… He’s quiet and keeps to himself. He’s just as nervous, if not more than we are.”

At first, SU raced ahead. Fox had told his team to be in the top-50 at the beginning of the race, otherwise the crowd would clog his runners in the back. Syracuse’s seven got out in front and remained there as the pack gradually thinned. The usual suspects — Colorado, Stanford, Oregon, Villanova — remained near the front, and Hehir, Knight and Bennie paced SU.

Fox, Bell and assistant coach Adam Smith met their runners at every marker. The farther into the race, the more animated the trio became. When SU’s lead runners had just 1 mile left, Hehir spotted Fox jumping on the sidelines, screaming “We’re going to win.”

“I may have lost my composure,” Fox said later.

After racers crossed the finish line, the team gathered inside their tent. Eyes locked on the orange-and-black scoreboard. They waited. And waited. Seven minutes after the race, the final score still wasn’t in.

“We had a 15-point lead,” Smith said. “Then we had a 4-point lead. At one point, Colorado had the lead. We’re just watching this thing.”

Then, the scoreboard flipped to the final score. Just above “COLORADO 91” sat “SYRACUSE 82.” The tent shook. The runners, coaches and families screamed and jumped and cried. Hehir glimpsed his coach, hands over his face, tears in his eyes.

***

Twenty-three months have passed since that freezing November morning in Louisville. Scanning the faces in practice, SU’s core remains largely intact from 2015. Of the scorers, only Hehir and Joel Hubbard graduated, and Knight, Bennie and Germano are all now seniors. Last year, led by those three, SU looked primed for a title defense but fell short and finished in third.

Now, in their final year, the three prepare to make another title run.

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In Manley Field House, next to lacrosse players chucking balls against the wall, the team sits inside of the track, as it does before every practice.

“Who’s got something?” Fox asks his team, meaning a fun fact, which SU starts every practice with.

One by one, Fox called on his runners. This afternoon, Fox began with Bennie, but the All-American didn’t have one.

“During the Renaissance,” one runner piped up from the back, “brothels painted their doors either green or red. I can’t remember.”

“Red,” Fox replied.

In the midst of all that’s changed for Syracuse in the last decade, Fox and his staff remains its constant. Without Bell and Smith, Fox said, SU would not be where it is now. Since 2009, SU has won six of seven conference championships. It is the heavy favorite to win again.

“You know when you go up against Syracuse,” Virginia Tech head coach Ben Thomas said, “you’re going to have to have a perfect day to have any chance of being competitive.”

Fox didn’t just improve SU, Duke head coach Norm Ogilvie said, but he changed the conference, because SU’s win attracted more top runners to the ACC. In his 27 years coaching at Duke, Ogilvie said he has never had talent like he has now.

“We’re jealous of him,” Ogilvie said, “but we’re proud of him too. He didn’t stop at just becoming good… He did something special.”

SU is the only team east of Wisconsin to win the title in the last 40 years. Until Syracuse’s title, eight teams had split 40 championships. The Orange was never supposed to win. It didn’t have the history of Oregon, or the weather of Stanford, or the altitude of Colorado. Yet, led by Fox, Syracuse beat them all.

“It was amazing,” Gross said. “Almost miraculous. That program wasn’t…” He paused. “Nothing’s going to happen like that fast (again).

“And he made it happen.”