EDWARDSVILLE - Edwardsville High School’s athletic department has a new beginning this week as new athletic director Alex Fox takes over the reigns from Brad Bevis, who retired.
Fox has been a fixture in Edwardsville schools for many years and this past year was the administrator at Edwardsville High School South prior to taking over the athletic director position. He was previously an assistant principal at the high school.
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Fox began his career as a teacher at Columbus Elementary in 1998. He graduated from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Fox also served as Liberty Middle School athletic director from 2006-2010.
“It is an amazing opportunity,” Fox said of his new role as EHS athletic director. “I am looking forward to it. My goal is just to get in and make the transition pretty seamless. I personally look forward to working closely with the student athletes. Nothing is more rewarding than working with the kids and helping them be successful and move forward with their lives.”
Fox commended Bevis and Jessica VanDeHey, the EHS athletic director secretary, for their hard work in helping make the transition a success.
“Brad is a guy that has an incredible passion for students and athletics,” Fox said. “Brad’s own kids played and participated here. He was able to watch them come up through the system. As he took over he put a stamp on the program.
"Brad has done an amazing job, witnessed by the level of success we have had. He is a guy always looking to improve things. He has been a tremendous help for me in the period of transition.”
Fox said Edwardsville High School has an incredible coaching staff who lead their different programs.
“We just had Illinois’ Mr. Basketball Mark Smith and won the state track and field title and finished second in baseball,” Fox said. “There is definitely high expectations to live up to. It is kind of funny, but I remember looking back my first year when I was 23 years old on the first day we had full district meetings. I said to myself, 'one day if I work hard, I will be up on that stage leading the group.'
"I have been fortunate to have worked with some outstanding people the last 19 years. I have tried to do what is right for the kids. I feel if you do that, everything will fall into place. I have had a lot of great mentors.”
Fox also pointed out some other incredible EHS accomplishments in the 2016-2017 school year. Some of those were: Alex Gray and Zach Trimpe also captured a IHSA Class 2A boys tennis doubles crown and Bailey Grinter won EHS' first state girls swimming title in the 100-meter backstroke. The Edwardsville girls basketball was second in the IHSA Class 4A tourney. The boys basketball squad had an outstanding overall year, advancing to the super-sectional and the football boys advanced to the IHSA Class 8A quarterfinals before losing to Glenbard West.
Fox’s father was in the U.S. Army for 24 years, so he grew up traveling a lot and finished high school in Germany.
“I planned to play college football at West Virginia, but I had sustained damage to my leg my senior year in high school,” he said. “I put playing football on hold. I wanted to go into coaching and teaching. My mother was a teacher.”
The Edwardsville man said he had family from the St. Louis area and his father was originally from East St. Louis and that drew him to think about attending SIUE. While he was student-teaching he decided to apply for a position in the Edwardsville district and he was successful.
Alex and his wife, Tara, have three children. She is an administrator in the Edwardsville system.
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