Cal Sports Report

Ex-Cal Head Coach Mark Fox Expected to Join Kentucky's Coaching Staff

Cal had a 3-29 record in Mark Fox's final season in Berkeley, and now apparently he will be an assistant coach on Mark Pope's staff at Kentucky in the Southeastern Conference
Jake Curtis|
Feb 18, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; California Golden Bears head coach Mark Fox in a
Feb 18, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; California Golden Bears head coach Mark Fox in a | Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Mark Fox, who was Cal's head coach in 2022-23 when the Bears had their wort season in school history, reportedly is expected to be added to Mark Pope's coaching staff at Kentucky.

Kyle Tucker of The Athletic and Matt Norlander of CBS Sports made the reports.

Interestingly Fox is described as filling the "Bruiser-type, non-recruiting role." He emphasized physical play at Cal but had trouble attracting elite-level talent.

Cody Fueger and Json Hart are two other people expected to be added to the coaching staff under Pope, who was BYU's head coach this past season but was recently hired as the head coach at Kentucky after JohnCalipari left to become Arknasas' head coach.

The media scrutiny at Kentucky will be much greater at Kentcky than it was at Cal, although as an assistant coach Fox may be shielded from some of that.

Before becoming the head coach at Cal, Fox had been the head coach at Nevada and Georgia. He had enough success at Nevada to land the Georgia job. Fox had moderate success at Georgia before being dismissed after nine seasons after the 2017-18 season.

Fox was not a head coach anywhere in 2018-19, and was named Cal head coach prior to the 2019-20 season. He was Cal's head coach for four seasons and did not have much success. The Bears were 14-18 overall (7-11 in the Pac-12) in his first season in Berkeley, and that turned out to be his best season with Cal. Cal went 9-20 (3-17 Pac-12) in his second season and 12-20 (5-15 in Pac-12) in his third.

In his final season in Berkeley, Cal went 2-18 in the conference and 3-29 overall, which was the worst record in Cal history. He was fired following that season, and he was replaced by Mark Madsen, who went 13-19 overall and 9-11 in the conference in 2023-24.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.