A former nationally ranked age-group swimmer, state-record holder, and qualifier for the NCAA Division III Championships, David Fox returned to his native Oklahoma following his graduation from Bates College, where he held school records in nine of the eighteen individual swimming events.
From 1993-1996, Fox coached at SwimTulsa and the Trojan Aquatic Club and worked with 21 Junior National qualifiers, one Junior National Champion, six Senior National qualifiers, and one Olympic Trials qualifier. For the next eight years, he taught at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa and served as a student, teacher, coach, and administrator at Harvard University.
In 2004, Fox joined the English Department at Phillips Academy, and in 2006, he began assisting Coach Jacques Hugon ’79 with the Boys’ Varsity Swimming and Diving Team. During the next six years under Coach Hugon’s leadership, the team held a 44-4 dual-meet record (44-1 in New England) and won three New England Championships.
In 2012, Fox was named Head Coach of the Boys’ Varsity Swimming and Diving Team. During his seven seasons as Head Coach—he took a sabbatical in 2015—Andover is 50-3 in dual meets (44-0 in New England) and has won the New England Championship each of the six times he has led the team at the meet. The team also placed fourth at the 2013 and 2014 Eastern Championships and second at the 2017 and 2018 Eastern Championships.
In 2019, Andover won its first Eastern Championship, the first New England team to do so. 2019 also saw Andover serve as the representative of the United States at the World Schools Swimming Championship in Rio de Janeiro.
Since 2012, Andover swimmers and divers have broken 220 National, Eastern, class, pool, meet, school, and New England records. In addition, Fox has guided 26 individual swimmers to 109 distinct All-American performances.
In addition to coaching the team and teaching English—usually eleventh and twelfth graders with electives in philosophy and literature, critical theory, Don Quixote, The Wire, and Shakespeare, among others—Fox teaches Andover’s year-long course in the history of art and visual culture, lives in a ninth-grade dormitory, and chairs the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. In 2017, the Trustees of Phillips Academy awarded Fox the Frederick W. Beinecke Teaching Foundation, an honor he retains permanently.
For more than thirty years, Fox has been involved in water polo, including playing, coaching, and officiating at national championships as well as placing athletes on USA Junior National teams. For nine years, Fox served as the Head Coach of the Boys’ Varsity Water Polo Team, which won the 2013 New England Championship.
Fox holds a bachelor’s degree from Bates College and a master’s degree from Harvard University.
