Bill Shanks: Mark Fox has a tough challenge in Athens

Mark Fox is almost as interesting a case study as his good friend with the same first name who coached football at Georgia. But the other head coach named Mark likely will never get the love once showered on Mark Richt.

That's because Fox coaches men's basketball. It's the second-tier athletics program at Georgia. It's not football, so it never will be anything more than that "other" sport.

This is Fox's seventh season in Athens. He has had three winning seasons and three losing seasons. The past two years have been his best, with two straight 20-win seasons. It's still a toss-up of whether or not Georgia will reach that plateau this season.

Some might say no matter what Fox does or how well his program performs, it'll never matter. On most nights in January when his basketball team is playing, deep down Fox knows most Georgia fans are more concerned with which important football recruits might be visiting Athens.

On Saturday, Fox's Bulldogs beat Arkansas in overtime to improve to five games above .500. But the win wasn't even the biggest story of the night. Instead, it was when new football head coach Kirby Smart paraded his recruits into Stegeman Coliseum during a timeout.

Smart and the recruits got a standing ovation. It was something Fox likely wishes his basketball team would get more often. Then Smart spoke at halftime and fired up the crowd even more when he talked about wanting 93,000 people at Sanford Stadium for the G-Day game in mid-April.

Fox seemed irritated after the game when he was asked about Smart's appearance. Perhaps he did not want the football coach to upstage his basketball team. But Fox has to be used to that by now.

It's easy to say Georgia basketball will never truly be relevant compared to football, so why bother. But other football schools also have success at basketball, so it's really a lame excuse to believe Fox never can build a true winner just because football is king in Athens.

If Fox had better talent and if his teams were more entertaining, more people would care. Georgia basketball hasn't been relevant in a long time. You have to go back to the Jim Harrick era in Athens, which ended in scandal, to find the last time Georgia had three straight winning seasons.

Dennis Felton replaced Harrick, but in his six years, Georgia never had back-to-back winning seasons. And now Fox is trying to turn a corner with a winning stretch. That would be a good start, but he has a long way to go to capture the attention of his fan base.

There must be more than a million people within an hour's drive of Athens, but yet we still see pockets of empty seats for Georgia's home games, particularly during the week. Has Fox adequately promoted his product? Has Fox tried to get more people in the building, to simply build a culture that would be much more impressive than having Stegeman less than full?

A week ago we wrote about how Bob Hoffman has made Mercer basketball relevant. If Hoffman can do it, why hasn't Fox done it in Athens? Mercer gives out free tickets just to pack Hawkins' Arena. That has helped create an atmosphere that is tremendous for Mercer's home games. Doesn't Georgia have enough money in the bank to do the same thing, if it would help Fox's program become more of a thing to do?

Fox has to take the lead. He might be fighting a losing battle, but Fox must do everything possible to make Georgia basketball relevant again. He should come to Macon and invite Georgia fans to go watch his team. He should speak to every civic group in the state to promote his product.

But the first thing Fox must do is get better talent. There's no better promotion in the world than winning, and if Fox can get better players, he might make basketball a decent second option for Georgia fans.

Listen to "The Bill Shanks Show" from 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WPLA Fox Sports 1670 AM in Macon and online at www.foxsports1670.com. Follow Bill at twitter.com/BillShanks and email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 5:52 PM with the headline "Bill Shanks: Mark Fox has a tough challenge in Athens ."