Physics Teacher and Softball Coach Julie Fox is in her second year of coaching at Malden High School, although she has been coaching softball for 14 years. She has coached teams ranging from middle school to college.
Fox played softball and baseball for about 16 years; she had been playing since around first grade and played through college. Fox mentioned that she wanted to start coaching during her senior year in college. She added that “[she] remember talking about it with [her] friends and they were like ‘you should coach, you would be really good at it, you’re really good at talking to people, and you’re really into sports’”.
She explains that the thing she loves most about softball is the strategy, she says “as a coach, the strategy is [her] favorite part because [she] gets to be the one who decides who’s playing and in what position, and that’s something [she enjoys]”.
As a coach, some of her strengths are that she has a good knowledge of the game, and she’s “very detail oriented”, and that’s important because there’s a lot of small but important details that need to be “taken care of” and paid attention to. Furthermore, she explained that she can talk to the players individually to work with them on their weaknesses, also finding and using their strengths. She added “[she tries] to give them confidence and tell [the players] things [she sees] in them”.
A motivation for Coach Fox is winning; especially since she is super competitive. Another motivation for her is seeing improvements, “seeing differences in how kids grow over time, and just seeing if [she] can push people to do their best. This also applies to teaching as well”. Fox explained that “[she] definitely [gets] a lot of motivation out of seeing someone take something they have learned [from her] whether it is in the classroom or on the field”.
Fox mentioned that her weakness as a coach is it’s only her second year coaching softball at the Malden High School therefore she is still adapting to “being in charge of the program”. She mentioned that coaching here is different than coaching in college, or recreation softball, because in the high school’s program there’s a freshman team, a JV team, and a varsity team whereas the other programs she had coached, she was only in charge of one team. She explains that she provides “a vision for the program and ideas on what to do”, adding “once [the teams] get outside [they] won’t be practicing together, so [Coach Fox can’t] see the other kids on the team playing as often” so she won’t be able to provide input, so she is hoping to figure out “how to stay in touch with the freshman and JV team once [they are] not all together”.
Growing up, Fox said, she had “played a lot of sports; [She] would say [she] has always identified as an athlete”. She explained that “sports has always been main part of [her], and ever since [she] graduated from college coaching has been a main part of [her] as well”.
Other hobbies Coach Fox enjoys are gardening and photography. In addition, when asked, Coach Fox described herself as “focused and driven”, and occasionally humorous. Fox also played tennis, in fact, longer than softball. She mentioned she “coached tennis [at the High School] for a year before the softball coaching spot opened up”.
