CHAPEL HILL — Jacob Stallings and the rest of North Carolina’s baseball team want to make it to the College World Series.
Not only for themselves — but for their coach, to honor his late mother.
The Tar Heels swept the Chapel Hill Regional last weekend, but coach Mike Fox wasn’t there. Instead, he was home with family in Raleigh. In his absence, the Tar Heels swept the regional, and in their final game, they wore pink socks — the color of breast-cancer awareness — in Barbara Fox’s memory.
“Getting to Omaha is such a sense of accomplishment in itself, but with what coach has gone through the past few days, it would be something that all the guys would really feel like we kind of owe to him,” Stallings said.
“He’s put so much into this team. … We all look up to him, and we know that him not being here just killed him. To go back to Omaha and win this weekend, I think it’d be the best thing that we could do for him.”
Fox’s mother died June 4 at the age of 76 after a second bout with cancer. She was a regular at Boshamer Stadium through the years, and the players attended her visitation on Monday. The coaching staff attended her funeral Tuesday before the team reconvened for its first practice of the week.
“It was good for our guys to get over there and just give Coach Fox a big hug,” said assistant coach Scott Jackson.
Now the Tar Heels (48-14), the No. 3 national seed in the tournament, are trying to shift the focus back onto the field for the best-of-three super regional series against Stanford (35-20) that begins Friday.
The winner advances to Omaha. And the goal — a fifth College World Series trip in six years — remains the same, although now they’re pursuing it with added purpose.
“Coach has been near and dear to all of our hearts this last week, what he’s going through with his family,” pitcher Greg Holt said. “He expects nothing less than for us to go out and play the Carolina way, and play the way that he has instilled in us to play. I think winning the super regional, trip back to the World Series, for him will mean not only something important to him but something important to our team.”
Said shortstop Levi Michael: “We know it’s a tough time for him, so we’re just trying to do our best to try to keep his mind off of baseball right now and make it as easy for him to deal with what he has to go through right now.”
Jackson said he’s “pretty sure (Fox) plans on being here” for the super regional. Associate head coach Scott Forbes ran the team in Fox’s absence and guided the Tar Heels to three straight wins by a combined score of 27-3.
For their regional-sealing win over James Madison on Sunday night, each of the players pulled his uniform pant legs up to his knees to expose pink socks. Forbes said Fox gave his blessing for that public gesture beforehand.
“We couldn’t be prouder, as a coaching staff, of our team,” Jackson said. “Just the way Coach Fox runs the program, the way he’s put us in a position to be here at this time. He teaches us to play a certain way and conduct ourselves off the field, whether it’s assistant coaches or players. Our guys do what they’ve done all year, and they did it this weekend. We’re just as proud as we can be of them.”