'Minding' the Keydets

VMI's Duggar Baucom enlists a different sort of 'head coach.'
By Randy King
981-3126


Courtesy of Chuck Steenburgh, VMI

Dr. Travis Fox, a California-based hypnotherapist and psychologist, is helping the VMI men's team this season.

LEXINGTON -- One of the biggest reasons behind VMI's most successful basketball season in 31 years? How about a part-time bench-warmer who hasn't scored a point.

Say what? Well, ask coach Duggar Baucom and his players. All confirm that self-proclaimed "head coach" Dr. Travis Fox has been instrumental in the school's first 20-win season since 1977-78.

Talk about changing times on post. Not only are the Keydets suddenly winning a bunch of games, they now have a California-based hypnotherapist who wears a diamond earring and blonde-tipped locks as part of their inner fold.

"Travis Fox ... that's our secret weapon," Baucom said. "Not only is he a head coach for the head coach, he's done a lot of work with our guys. He taught them to believe in themselves more and they believe in each other. Dr. Fox has helped us, believe me."

Fox, 38, who has doctorates in psychology and clinical hypnotherapy, will be making his fourth trip to town today when VMI (20-6, 11-4) meets Big South leader Radford (16-10, 13-2) today at 4 p.m. at Cameron Hall. The Keydets perhaps could have used his mental support last week when they dropped close games at Coastal Carolina and Presbyterian, marking their first back-to-back losses of the season.

Baucom, an avid golfer, first met Fox last spring at the Wachovia Championship PGA Tour event in Charlotte, N.C. Baucom recognized Fox from the ex-professional golfer's "Beat the Bogey Man" self-help informercials on The Golf Channel. While Fox has had professional golfers as clients, VMI is the first college basketball team he has worked with.

"Coach Duggar and Coach [Daniel] Willis [assistant coach] introduced themselves to me and we sat down and talked until 4 o'clock in the morning at the hotel," Fox recalled. "We really identified with each other and I told Coach Duggar what our vision is and how our methodology works. I knew from that point on that we were going to be a part of this."

Fox got his first look at the team Nov. 29 at Jacksonville State, where a VMI club that had stunned Kentucky at Rupp Arena in its opener 15 days earlier was crushed 95-67.

"The outcome may not have been what they wanted, but it was absolutely what I was looking for at that time," said Fox, who sat directly behind the team bench for the game. "It got me an opportunity as a 'head coach' to see exactly how the team was operated, where our weaknesses were, where our strengths were, and where we could build from there."

Fox closely watched the coaches and players, making notes on what each of his subjects said and their reactions, plus other indicators such as body language, etc. He made his first visit to Lexington a few days later, and has worked one-on-one with the coaches and players with the mind game. Fox calls it high-performance behavior modification methodology.

"It shows these guys how to be aware when their mind is playing games with themselves," Fox said. "I try to help these guys how their mind works, how it relates to their body, how it relates to their spirit. The truth is we all get in our own way.

"I think the biggest thing that guys have had to come up against is nobody expected it here. When I first met the team, I said, 'We have to believe in the impossible.' I said if you're not willing to believe in that, then I've got the wrong team. I asked everyone to commit. I said, 'would you be willing, if I could prove to you, that you're getting in your own way ... and it's not your basketball game, it's your head that interrupting your basketball game.' "

When not in town, Fox has stayed in touch with the team through video conferencing and text messages.

Despite last week's letdown, the Keydets are still believing in the impossible. They desperately want to win the Big South tournament and end the program's long NCAA drought.

"Honestly, at first, I thought bringing this guy in was going to be like a waste of time," Holmes said of Fox. "But it's been 100 percent the opposite. He's just getting into everybody's head and showing us that we do have control over our mind."

"I think all of us have developed a lifelong relationship with him already. Basically, he has been the majority of the reason we've been doing what we're doing. Hey, we love him."