Paul Hines
Assistant Sports Editor

Observant Final Four watchers might get a glimpse of Tony Cox tonight if they look real closely.

Cox will be sitting behind the Duke Blue Devils bench in the second of the two Final Four basketball matchups. Cox currently works with Henry County Sports Medicine and in the past was the athletic trainer at Ball State.

"I don't think there's anything any bigger than this; maybe just the Super Bowl," Cox said. "When you're talking about the Final Four and March Madness, obviously I spent 23 years working as a Division I mens basketball athletic trainer, you know that's the biggest stage."

He got a call from Ralph Reiff at St. Vincent Hospital of Indianapolis, offering him a chance to be involved with this year's Final Four in the capacity of sports medicine. Cox and Reiff were friends when Cox worked at Ball State and Reiff worked for Butler. Today, Cox will serve as the host athletic trainer for Duke. He will work as a liaison between the Lucas Oil Stadium and Duke training staff.

"I'm just a person that's going to make sure that if they need an X-ray or see one of the doctors or whatever that I'm the person that can get them to that."

Cox was at Lucas Oil Stadium on Thursday and Friday for the teams open and closed practices. When he's not focused on the Duke team, he helps assist the other teams.

"Even though I won't have an actual part like I would years ago, I'm still excited to be in that environment because there's none any better," Cox said.

The Final Four experience won't be all business for Cox. He intends to take in the whole experience.

"I'll have a little time here and there with having an all-access pass I can go to all the media functions and interviews and pretty much go any place I need to go," Cox said.

He'll be keeping an eye out for former New Castle players Zach Hahn and Chase Stigall as well. Hahn is a junior on Butler's team, and Stigall is a freshman.

"It's made this 2010 pretty special," Cox said. "I can't wait to see those kids walking out onto the practice court. They have the first practice (Thursday). To see a team that's really gone way past everybody's expectations and to understand as they walk by what they had to do to achieve that and how much they had to believe in themselves. That's a tight group."

The Final Four connections don't end with the for New Castle players. Cox attended Miami (Ohio) with the West Virginia athletic trainer. Michigan State's basketball trainer went to school as an undergraduate at Ball State.

"I think that's really neat that I can go and watch them work first-hand," Cox said.

Tony is the father of Kyle, who played basketball at Blue River Valley, and Caitlin, who played for New Castle in volleyball.

 

Source: The Courier Times