Reserve guard on Dayton’s famous 1967 team dies at 78

The week Dayton played in the Final Four, before it beat North Carolina in the national semifinals, Jim Zofkie, of the Journal Herald, wrote a story with the headline, “Forgotten Six play big role.”

The players mentioned were: junior forward Jim Wannemacher; senior forward John Samanich; senior guard Dave Inderrieden; junior forward John Rohm; sophomore guard Tom Heckman; and Fox, a 6-foot-4 junior forward. All were members of the scout team, which helped the starters, including leading scorers Don May and Bobby Joe Hooper, prepare for games.

“And what a job they’ve done!” Donoher said. “In a short time they do a great job of learning the offenses and defenses of teams we are to play. It’s tough when you have to tell your friends this is your major contribution to a team, but to us it’s very important and we’re happy to have a group of players willing to give their all in practice.”

In the same story, Donoher said of Fox, “He had days in the fall when he outplayed all our forwards, including May. He never has been really given a good chance.”

Fox won the John L. Macbeth Scholar-Athlete Award, which is still given out after every season, that year.

Fox arrived at UD in 1964. He spent three years with the program. According to a Journal Herald report in October 1967, Fox quit the team to focus on his classes. He was a pre-med major.

According to his obituary, Fox earned a doctorate in optometry from Ohio State. He worked for more than 20 years with the Eye Care Center in Mason. He married Sandra Kay Goss Drake in 1989, and they moved to Madison in 2012.