New Drake football coach Rick Fox.
Drake Athletic Director, Sandy Hatfield-Club, introduced the school’s new football coach publicly for the first time today since it was announced that coach Chris Creighton is leaving after six seasons to take over at Eastern Michigan. “Ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome our new football coach at Drake University, Rick Fox,” Hatfield-Club says.
It was really more of a promotion ceremony than an introduction, as Fox came to Drake with Creighton six years ago. “Coach Fox is a veteran coach with 27 years of coaching experience. He spent the last six years as our offensive line coach and special teams coordinator here at Drake,” Hatfield-Clubs says. “For the past three seasons he has served as the assistant head coach where he arm-in-arm has built the success with coach Creighton that we’ve seen on the football field.”
Creighton compiled a 44-22 record, including two Pioneer Football League Championships. Fox says that leads everyone to ask what he has planned. “The question I’m getting is ‘How do you follow that. How do you follow a man like that in this position?’ My answer to that Is I don’t follow that — we continue it. We continue it,”Fox says.
He has also been asked how he will put his own stamp on the Bulldog program. “That is the most difficult question I have been asked since last Wednesday night,” according to Fox. “And the reason is it is so difficult is because coach Creighton and I are really brothers. We have been friends for over 20 years, we’ve had the opportunity to coach together these past six years, and we beat with the same heartbeat in terms of our vision for a college football program and the impact it can have on a young men, and the impact that it can have on a community, and on a campus .”
Fox has been on the recruiting trail since the announcement of the coaching change last week, and says he is telling the players this. “We’re continuing to build on the same principles that first got you interested in Drake and Drake Football — those things haven’t changed. And so, we’ve gotten some pretty good feedback,” Fox says.