=Gary Bruce Cox
Dec. 21, 1943 – July
3, 2021
Philomath News July 15, 2021
Mr. Cox is a legacy.
Coach Cox, a true Warrior with a gift for making everyone feel good about
themselves. Gary Cox, a man of faith known for his humor. A role model and
inspiration. A hero to many and a father figure to others. A mentor with a
beacon of kindness and compassion. He is a voice of wisdom and positive
influence with willingness to extend tough love. Gary is a rock solid class act
that etched a permanent spot on our hearts. He has great enthusiasm for all
things Warrior “Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior.”
Gary Bruce Cox died
July 3, 2021 at his home in Redmond, OR surrounded by family.
Born on December 21,
1943 in Cottage Grove, OR to Tom and Mary Cox. He grew up in Drain, OR and
graduated from Drain Union High School in 1962. After graduation he married his
high school sweetheart on August 16, 1963. He went on to attend college at
University of Oregon, Columbia Basin Junior College and then graduated from
Linfield College in 1968.
Gary and Diana moved
to Philomath in 1968 where they made their home for 36 years. Gary began his
career with the Philomath School District in 1968. The couple had two children,
Christina Cox Rosborough and Kathi Cox Sollars. After 30 years as teacher,
coach and athletic director, Gary retired in 1998. Gary started as a volunteer
firefighter with the Philomath Fire Department in 1972 and retired in 2003
after 31 and a half years of service. Gary and Diana were members of Suburban
Christian Church for 33 years and most recently of Redmond Christian Church.
Throughout the years,
Gary was recognized for:
• NAIA Baseball
Championship, 1966.
• 4A Athletic
Director of the Year, 1991.
• Al Neet Educator of
the Year, 1998.
• Inducted into
Linfield College Athletic Hall of Fame (Baseball), 1999.
• Inducted into State
of OR Sports Hall of Fame.
• Inducted into
Linfield College Athletic Hall of Fame (Football), 2010.
• Inducted into the
OR Athletic Directors Assoc. Hall of Fame, 2012.
• Philomath Fire
Department Most Inspirational Firefighter and Firefighter of the Quarter.
• Philomath Community
Service Award.
• Philomath High
School Legend Club.
• Founder of the
Warrior Scramble.
• Board of Directors
for PYAC.
• Recently honored by
having the PHS/Gary Cox Hall of Fame named after him.
He enjoyed spending
his time fishing, golfing, gardening, camping, traveling, sports and attending
his grandkids school and sport activities.
Survivors include:
Wife, Diana Cox, daughter Christina Rosborough (husband Todd) of Oregon City,
OR, daughter Kathi Sollars (husband Shad) of Lahaina, HI. Brother Steve Cox
(wife Sharley) of Medford, OR. Four grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren,
nephews and nieces.
Preceded in death by
his parents Tom and Mary Cox.
Gary will be laid to
rest in a private burial at Comstock Cemetery in Curtin, OR.
A celebration of Life
will be held August 7, 2021, 1:30 pm at Suburban Christian Church located at
2760 SW 53rd St. Corvallis, OR 97333.
In lieu of flowers,
donations can be made In Memory of Gary Cox to:
Philomath Youth
Activities Club (PYAC)
PO Box 1358
Philomath, OR 97370
or online
Venmo:
@PhilomathYouthActivitiesClub
#
=Coach Cox at
Philomath: ‘He’s a legend around here’
By Brad Fuqua, Philomath News, July 20,
2021
The late Gary Cox and
his impact on Philomath
Strike up a
conversation about Gary Cox and a common theme starts to present itself —
mentor, caring, modest, passionate.
“He was a great
friend for so many things, but he was a good coach and mentor,” said family
friend Marcia Gilson, who first met Cox at a Philomath Booster Club meeting — her
as the parent of a student-athlete and him as the athletic director.
“He was good at
bringing your strengths out in you, so he was a good coach and just a very
caring person,” she added. “I can’t think of anything bad about him, except
maybe he was too humble.”
Another longtime
friend, Blake Ecker, said simply, “He’s a legend around here — no doubt about
it.”
Cox, former longtime
athletic director, teacher and coach, died on July 3 at his home in Redmond. He
was 77.
“He’s always been
kind of that mentor,” said Ecker, who is Philomath High’s varsity boys
basketball coach. “When I was a JV coach, he was still the athletic director
and I looked up to him … just a world of a guy. It’s hard talking about him
because it’s pretty emotional.”
Steve Bennett, a
teacher and himself a former coach and AD, first met Cox during the fall of
1991. That was the year he came on board as an assistant basketball coach. They
knew each other for several years through their association with athletics and
teaching and then in 2012, Cox was inducted into the Oregon Athletic Directors
Association Hall of Fame.
“He invited me to
that and that’s when our friendship really took off and I got to know him and
his family a little bit better,” Bennett said. “It turned into lots of phone
calls and texts and fishing over the last 10 years.”
Ah yes, the fishing.
It’s another common theme among those who can share stories about him. Or,
baseball — he enjoyed going to Arizona and watching spring training and Oregon
State. And his passion for sports never waned with a continued interest in
Philomath High as well as a love for watching his grandchildren play.
“These last few
months, he was able to watch his granddaughters play volleyball and I gave him
a link to watch all of our basketball games,” Ecker said. “It was good that he
was able to see those things.”
Before Philomath
Cox experienced
exceptional success in high school athletics at Drain, a small community
located about 40 miles south of Eugene. Graduating with Drain Union High
School’s Class of 1962 (the school did not become North Douglas until 1968), he
earned 12 varsity letters.
In football, Cox led
the Warriors as their star quarterback to an 8-2 record and an appearance in
the Class A-2 state playoffs during his senior season in the fall of 1961. The
following summer, he played in the Shrine All-Star Game, which at the time was
held in Pendleton.
Cox played catcher on
Drain’s baseball team and hit .500 in league play as a senior. The Warriors
advanced to the A-2 state playoffs and ended up sharing the title with North Catholic.
Drain opened the playoffs with a 3-2 win over Riddle and then downed the
defending state champions, Serra Catholic (a now-defunct Salem school), 1-0. In
a pitchers’ duel, the Warriors won the game despite getting only one hit — an
infield single in the sixth inning by Cox.
Drain advanced to the
championship game, but unfortunately, all of the state title games in 1962 were
rained out and never played.
Cox also played
American Legion baseball in the summer and appeared in the State-Metro All-Star
Baseball Series. He earned all-state honors in both football and baseball.
Following high
school, Cox continued his education at the University of Oregon. In 1963, he
headed to Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington, and then moved on to
Linfield College in McMinnville, where he earned a degree in 1968.
Cox married Diana
Becker, a high school classmate, in an evening ceremony on Aug. 16, 1963 in
Drain. Later, during their 36 years in Philomath, Cox and his wife had two
children — daughters Christina and Kathi.
In 1966, Cox was a
catcher on Linfield’s baseball team that won the NAIA championship. The
Wildcats barely qualified for the playoffs as a No. 8 seed and then won four
straight games to claim the title. Linfield defeated Lewis, 15-4, in the championship
game to finish 26-9 and earn the first national title in the school’s history.
Always a Warrior
Cox arrived at
Philomath High School in 1968 as a 24-year-old head baseball coach, replacing
Cecil Ira who had resigned after the 1968 season. That spring, Cox had been a
student baseball coach at Linfield. He also was immediately involved with the
PHS football and basketball programs as an assistant.
Beyond coaching, Cox
was hired as a social studies and boys physical education teacher at the junior
high.
In 1973, Chuck Vaughn
moved from athletic director into an administrative position at the middle
school. Cox officially became the AD on July 1, 1973 and at the time was still
involved in coaching baseball, football and basketball.
Cox resigned as the
baseball coach following the 1976 season. The Warriors had won the Emerald
League championship in 1975. In eight years, his coaching record was 99-75.
Frank Hernandez took over the job in 1977.
In the following
years, Cox was involved in several efforts, such as raising money to improve
athletic facilities, among those a major $63,000 track renovation in 1978. In
1997, he helped raise more than $30,000 to send the school’s Shining Stars
dance team to Washington, D.C., to appear in President Bill Clinton’s
inauguration parade. Those are just a few examples of projects he helped
support.
Gilson explained how
Cox would approach people to become involved in something for the school or
students.
“If he came in and
asked you if you would work on a project or if you would do something, he had
thought about that for a long time,” she said. “He realized you would be able
to do it but he was encouraging you and giving you the opportunity to turn him
down. But he didn’t plan on you turning him down, he’d work on you.”
Cox was the AD when
Tami Maida of “Quarterback Princess” fame wanted to play football in 1981 and
he came to her defense.
“In my opinion,
anyone who walks onto the football field — whatever the sex — would be treated
the same. We’re not going to take it easy on girls. And on the other hand,
we’re not going to ‘rip city’ them either,” he told the Philomath School Board.
Cox ended up taking
over the baseball program as the head coach again in 1980. He coached baseball
five more seasons before resigning after the 1984 campaign.
In all, Cox worked in
the Philomath School District for 30 years — 25 as the athletic/activities
director. He was honored with an open house celebration on June 13, 1998.
“It was a great day
and each and everyone contributed to the greatness,” Cox wrote in a letter to
the editor following the event. “I wish I could say thanks to everyone
personally, but I might miss someone, so again I say thank you from the bottom
of my heart.”
Involved, appreciated
The Philomath School
District’s Al Neet Educator of the Year honor went to Cox in 1998 and his
career at Philomath High earned induction in 2012, as earlier mentioned, into
the OADA Hall of Fame.
Athletic directors
and coaches don’t see eye-to-eye on occasion — it’s just part of the
relationship. Bennett said the coaches respected him.
“Everybody always
respected Gary because his heart was in the right place,” Bennett said. “It
gets you through any kind of challenge or tough times when you are in those
situations because you have so much respect for the person. You know even
though you might not agree on things sometimes, his heart’s in the right place
and doing the right thing for kids.”
Several other honors
came along through the years, including OADA’s Class 3A Athletic Director of
the Year (1991), State of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame (in 1999 as part of
Linfield’s 1966 team), Linfield Athletic Hall of Fame (1999 for baseball, 2010
for football), PHS Legend Club (2012) and many others. He also served on the
Philomath Youth Activities Club’s board of directors.
Cox joined the
Philomath Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter in 1972 and remained
active for the next 31 years.
“He’s everything
positive that there is about Philomath,” said Gilson, who was also with
Philomath Fire & Rescue for many years.
Ecker first met Cox
while he was still in high school. Ecker’s freshman year on the baseball team
was Cox’s final season as head coach and he became good friends with his
daughter, Christina, who later married one of Ecker’s best friends, Todd
Rosborough.
“We started fishing
together and doing things together probably since college and then more and
more as I’ve gotten older,” Ecker said about his friendship with Cox.
Ecker shared a
pleasant memory about the last time they went crabbing together. It’s common to
put names on crab pots for identification purposes. Ecker said he has one with
Cox’s name on it, adding, “We’ll leave his name on there.”
Cox retained that
special connection to Philomath through sports, friendships and other
activities.
“He would always make
it to Legend Club meetings and any inductions that we had,” Bennett said. “And
he made it to the graduations forever.”
As mentioned earlier,
Cox was inducted in 2012 into the PHS Legend Club, an organization that honors
those who have gone above and beyond to support student-athletes. Bennett said
that for years, Cox wanted to do something to recognize others that didn’t fit
into the induction criteria of a student Hall of Fame or Legend Club.
“We never had
anything for alumni, coaches, there were some pieces like that missing,”
Bennett said. “So for the last year and a half or so, we’ve been working on
that and it’s going to continue on even without him. But that was really his
baby and he was really passionate about it.”
Cox always wanted to
make sure others knew how much their contributions were appreciated.
“He was always about
honoring people, thanking people, giving recognition to people,” Bennett said,
“And he was about being involved in the community, whether it was a firefighter
or with his church.”
The family planned
for a private burial at Comstock Cemetery in Curtin, a small town northeast of
Drain in Douglas County. A Celebration of Life event is scheduled for Aug. 7 at
Suburban Christian Church (2760 SW 53rd St., Corvallis) with a start time of
1:30 p.m.
