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After three years of guiding the Rockbridge County High School football team, Martin Cox has resigned as head coach.
Under Cox, the Wildcats went 6-24 overall and 4-12 in the Valley District. Their best season under Cox was his first, when they went 4-6 and just missed the Region 3C playoffs in 2022. In Cox’s first game as RC’s head coach, the Wildcats battled to a 32-29 win over local rival Parry McCluer, which would defeat the Wildcats in 2023 and last fall.
The Wildcats went 0-10 in 2023 and went 2-8 last fall, going 2-4 in the Valley District. RC’s wins last fall were a 26-17 road win over Harrisonburg on Oct. 11, snapping a 17-game losing streak dating back to November 2022, and a 28-6 home win over William Monroe in their season finale and their final game under Cox. The Wildcats are moving to the Shenandoah District this fall, with shorter travel distances to face district opponents.
In a phone interview on Monday, Cox said he decided to step down because “the program’s going in a different direction.”
Among Cox’s contributions while coaching in Rockbridge County, with the help of assistant coaches Joey Jones and Dan Taylor, was bringing the football program back to Maury River Middle School last fall for the first time since 2000. Cox said he thought the fall middle school season went well.
A special education teacher at RC, Cox and his wife, Amy, live in Bedford County and have two grown children. Cox said he will continue teaching at RC this year and that “time will tell” what the future holds for him.
He was the Wildcats’ first Black head football coach and their sixth head football coach since the school opened in 1992, the year Cox graduated from West Virginia University, where he was a tailback and studied anthropology and sociology. Cox also played football at Fairmont Senior High School in Fairmont, W.Va.
Reflecting on his time coaching at RC, Cox said he enjoyed working with his players. “I’m thankful for the opportunity and the chance to work with some incredible young men,” said Cox. “I wish them well in the future. I’ve been fortunate to have some very good assistant coaches that I wish well.”
Prior to coaching at RC, Cox coached for 12 years and taught at Jefferson Forest High School. Cox earned a master’s degree in special education from Liberty University. Before Cox’s journey into coaching, he worked in retail management for a company called Score, where he was a troubleshooter. He taught for about six years at the Rivermont School in Lynchburg and then worked in juvenile services, which he has done, full-time or part-time, for 24 years.
Grateful for what Cox has brought to the program, RC athletic director Adam Haynes said, “I’d like to thank him for his time and contributions to, not only, our football program here, but also our school. He’s been a valuable asset to our athletic department, to our entire school community. He’s worked really hard at building relationships with the kids and with everyone here.”
Haynes said Cox “was basically trying to not just teach his players about football, but trying to coach and teach the whole person and the whole player, teach them to become better young men and try to prepare them to be better citizens, and coaching’s a big part of that Being in athletics a long time, I know coaching offers the opportunity to give life lessons. He did a really good job of that.”
The search is underway for RC’s new head football coach, and Haynes said the athletic department hopes to start the interview process in the next two weeks, with the hope of having named a new head coach by the spring.
