by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
With more than three decades spent mentoring student athletes and organizing high school and middle school sports, Duval County Public Schools District Athletic Director Jon Fox is concerned about the future of athletics in the county.
The Duval County School Board is struggling to fill an estimated $97 million hole in the 2011-2012 budget and cutting after-school programs was suggested to help fill that gap.
Fox is one year from retirement, so the move may not affect him too much, but he worries about the children and the coaches who will be affected if that budget cut has to be made.
“I’m more worried about the kids because it would be such a tragedy for them,” said Fox.
“The kids have a four-year window to participate in sports that they may not be able to participate in once they graduate. For them to lose some or any of that time would be horrible,” he said.
“Eliminating sports would also be a loss to the district because we have some really good coaches here,” said Fox. “I’ve seen some of the excellent work they are doing out there.”
Fox took time to talk Wednesday about his job and whether or not it will be a position within the Duval County Public Schools in the coming years.
He was making calls Wednesday to correct a scheduling glitch that had a tennis tournament on the same day as an FCAT test, and he was working to reschedule the tournament.
“This is what I do,” said Fox. “The job title may have been the same for the last 13 years, but it’s different every day I come to work, most weeks.”
The finish to that sentence was sparked by the recent flood of calls from parents who are concerned about losing the sports programs at their children’s schools.
“Ever since the story hit the paper, we have been answering calls from parents,” said Fox. “People are concerned, and they should be.”
He has been involved with high school sports from almost every angle. Fox grew up in the basketball-crazy state of Indiana, in the City of Greensburg, and loved to play the game, “even though I had to fight for everything I could get because I was about 140 pounds and 5’7” in high school and not the best player in the world.”
He eventually became a basketball coach in Jacksonville at Terry Parker High School, where his current office is located. He was a head coach for 10 years before someone encouraged him to apply for athletic director at Mandarin High School, which opened in 1990. He was hired and became the school’s first athletic director.
Fox served in that position for eight years and then moved to his current position, where he has worked for 13 years.
His current position includes the responsibilities of working with athletic directors to develop schedules for each season and coordinating conference tournaments.
Scheduling includes a total of about 4,000 contests for 22 middle schools and a total of about 7,000 contests for 17 high schools.
The teams on those schedules have to have some place to play and Fox works with the City when a new facility is built or upgraded at one of the district’s schools.
“I bring a flavor of athletics to the table,” said Fox.
He also monitors the district’s Title IX compliance to ensure athletic opportunities are equal for girls and boys.
In that effort, some of the first projects when he took office were to improve the softball fields throughout the district with lights for night games and to see that team buildings were comparable to the baseball facilities. Fox also made sure every gymnasium was air-conditioned.
There are a lot of functions to the office, and Fox said those functions would not happen without support from his staff and the principals and athletic directors throughout the district.
“If we can make it safe, fair and competitive, than we’ve done our job,” said Fox.
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