Tucker Fox truly understands the concept of the Ole Miss Family, having never known any other way. It was only a matter of time before he stepped foot on campus and began to spread his passion and love for this community. Tucker aspires to better himself every day in order to allude to what it means to be an Ole Miss Rebel. Not only has he given back to this university through his involvement, but he has gained unexpected friendships and unforgettable memories along the way.
Tell me about yourself: Hometown, Major, Involvement
Tucker Fox is from Memphis, TN. His major is Banking and Finance, as well as Managerial Finance.
“I’m an only child. I grew up in Memphis and went to high school there. My parents sold the house and moved to Oxford. My mom is from Oxford, and she grew up here. I’m a fourth generation Ole Miss student. My grandmother taught in the School of Education forever, 30 years, so I guess I had deep roots in Oxford growing up and coming to holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and most every football weekend since before I can remember was spent here. It grew up being my second home. My parents went from being an hour away to five minutes away from where I live now.
I came to Ole Miss planning on walking on the golf team because I was a big golfer in high school, and that’s what I wanted to do. That ended up not working out after my freshman and sophomore years. Then, at the beginning of my junior year, I decided to get a little bit more involved on campus.”
Involvement: Co-Coordinator of Recruitment, Selection, and Training for the Ole Miss Ambassadors; Orientation Leader; Student Alumni Council; ASB Cabinet for External Affairs; Inter-fraternity Council as a Rho Alpha; member of Sigma Chi fraternity.
Why did you choose to attend Ole Miss?
I grew up coming to football games. This was literally all I’ve ever known, since before I can remember. When I was making my college decision, I was in between playing golf at some smaller D-3 and D-2 school and Ole Miss. Essentially, I would either be at a place doing something that I love but not really a place that I love or being at the place that I love, Ole Miss. Eventually, that won out in the end, which was absolutely the right decision. That’s where I truly wanted to be.
How has Ole Miss impacted you?
I think that I came in being around the university so much during my childhood that I felt like I had a good grasp of what Ole Miss was, or what my experience would be like. Then, I got here, and I realized it’s a little bit different than that. But even since then, my experience in the past few years have been impacted and changed. Mostly in part due to the people that I have come in contact with. Not just hanging out with one group of people or one type of person, but being able to meet people all over campus that are just like you and not like you at all, really gives you the perspective of the different people we have here. That impacted my experience a lot, and really gave me a better perspective and view of the way that Ole Miss really is.
In what ways, if any, have you changed since the beginning of your college career?
I am completely different than I was when I first stepped on campus. I feel like I’ve actually grown into a lot better version of myself, that has been through so many amazing experiences. I think I’ve taken a step towards becoming a lot better version of myself. I’ve just learned a lot. I’ve learned that there are more things to learn and that I don’t know everything, and there are so many more people here that are willing to help and that have helped me during my learning process or with anything. That’s how I’ve really grown. The people here have helped me grow, and that’s been one of the coolest transformations: me as a freshman to now. I’m still me but this person at the end is a lot more well-rounded than I was when I first got here.
What experiences have shaped you the most?
For me, the main experience was orientation. That would be the biggest turning point where you are literally in a group of people who are from all over this place. There is somebody on that team who can deal with or handle any situation that a certain student coming to college for the first time has. It is a very awesome, diverse group of people. I remember thinking, “There is no way I could have anything in common with them, much less carry on a conversation and those are the ones that I became best friends with. Those are the ones that I ended up rooming with. And so, that was the coolest and most growing experience. You meet people that you might not have originally come in contact with, and you come to realize they are not that much different from you.
What’s your favorite campus memory?
I definitely have a lot of good football memories because of how I’ve grown up, that’s just in my blood. I live and breath Ole Miss football or anything Ole Miss. The Sugar Bowl, my sophomore year. My parents and I all went down together, and it was like a family trip. Being able to have that awesome experience with them when we won. It was one of those times where you think, “How can everything be going this well? How can everything be going so right?” That would be one of my favorite memories, winning the Sugar Bowl and getting to be with my family and friends in New Orleans just enjoying being Rebels.
Why did you decide to run for Mr. Ole Miss? Were there any specific events?
I didn’t think that I would ever qualify to do something like this. I feel like I don’t have the résumé or anything like that. In a lot of ways it’s not really about that but in some ways it is. Someone who knows people from all over campus runs for this because you want to be a representation of everyone on campus. I had a lot of my friends come up to me during the summer, during orientation and stuff like that. They told me that I’d be really good for this. I shrugged it off, thinking that’s not me. I’ve never run for anything in my entire life. I felt like that’s not really something that I would do, and then I didn’t really think about it until later in July after orientation was over. When I actually decided to run was when I sat and ate lunch with one of my good buddies, Austin Powell. I think most people know Austin, and just how loved and respected he is on this campus. He was in town, and I just wanted to go eat lunch with him to see how he was. I was never going to mention any of that stuff to him because I was dead set not to do it, and he went out of his way to tell me saying, “I believe in you. You should do this. I believe that you’re authentic and genuine and have the right heart to be able to do something like this.” And I was shocked. If someone like Austin, who is so respected and loved on the Ole Miss campus tells me, out of anybody, that he believes in me, then at that point, I felt like I would really regret it if I didn’t try. That was the day that I decided to run because I figured, “What did I have to lose?” If Austin Powell believes in me, then hopefully a couple of other people will. I guess that was really why I decided to run. And you know, not just him, but other friends pushing me and urging me to do it.
What does being Mr. Ole Miss mean to you?
These positions or titles don’t come with a whole lot of responsibility, but they do in a way because both Savannah and myself want to be [positive] representatives. Especially since they are representatives of Ole Miss and everyone here. With that, what we said during the campaigns, those aren’t just empty words. Those are things that we actually mean. We truly believe that this is “Our Ole Miss” and “Our Ole Miss Family,” which are the things that we talked about while we were running. Simply put, it’s representative of everyone here. The interests and ideas of everyone here, and just being able to listen to everybody.
What would be the personal legacy, if any, that you would like to leave on campus?
I’m not that big into me being remembered, or anything like that. I would rather it be more about this place than any one of us. But if there would be one thing, I hope it would be that “He was somebody who just loved everybody and was intentional with everyone that he came in contact with.” I really believe that we are called to love everyone no matter how different, similar, or whatever it may be. To love everyone the same, and to treat them the way we would treat our best friends or anybody. I hope mine would be that “He was an awesome representative of what it is to be an Ole Miss Rebel.” And what that is is to be inclusive and to treat everybody with love and kindness. It would really be a legacy of kindness, and that “He’d be somebody that when you saw him, you would smile.” It’s like whenever I see Savannah, we just smile at each other and that’s a legacy in and of itself. It’s somebody that you see, and they make you happy. If people were to look at me, and me make them happy through whatever the experience may be, I think that would be a pretty cool legacy to leave. The main idea for our service project is we want to be able to do something that lasts, in terms of something that’s not just a one time thing. We want to do something that’s like, “This was started by Mr. and Miss Ole Miss in 2017 and it has continued on every year since.” The big picture of it is, we want to do something that gives back to the school and continues to give back to the school and the people here.
What was going through your head that night at the Lyceum before they announced the election results? For you it happened twice?
Yeah, it happened twice. That was pretty crazy. They were both very different because I knew we weren’t gonna win outright, or even, I didn’t know if we were gonna make a run-off or not, but I was really excited that night because I felt like Savvy was going to win. That was definitely more of her night. And that night was very much more of just shock and awe to me because we got announced last. I thought they announced the person with the most votes first, and all the guys that ran for Mr. Ole Miss are all friends of mine or people that I have a personal relationship with or worked with before. They are all great guys. And Chancellor is a really good friend of mine because he is from Memphis, as well. So when they announced him first, I thought, “Oh my god, no way we are in there too.” They announced our name next because they went from second most votes to first most votes, and that was shock. I truly didn’t expect that. Then, on Thursday night, I was a nervous wreck. On Tuesday I was fine, it was good. That was just shock, but then, Thursday I was a nervous wreck. We were taking pictures before the announcement. Everyone on the campaign and people were walking up to me and taking pictures. You can tell which pictures I took before the announcement, and which ones I took after, because the first ones I’m not smiling at all. I’m freaking out. Then, it got announced and that one was just more excitement. It didn’t hit me at all until maybe when we were doing all of the Homecoming stuff. Just the magnitude of it, but that was a pretty cool experience. The night that we actually ended up winning was so cool. It was just crazy to me throughout the entire process to see all of these people that are my friends, actually pour so much into it. They weren’t doing for them or for me, they were doing it because they believed in what we stood for, and they really bought into the process of what we were trying to say. That was the coolest thing for me, because I never thought in a million years that so many people would want to support me on something like this. Like I said before, I’ve never run for anything in my entire life, and probably won’t ever again. It was so exciting and emotional to see the outpouring of love from so many different people.
How has your time at the university enabled you to better Mississippi?
There isn’t any overarching, or one big thing. It’s more of the little things, and those are the things that are the most important, the interactions and the people we come in contact with. Like when we mentioned the legacy we want to leave of positivity on the campus, that’s how we better Mississippi. Because if we better Ole Miss, the flagship university of the state, then we are going to better Mississippi. If we do our part in bettering the people here, if we make the people better and the university better, we make Mississippi better. That’s how I’d say we’ve done our part to make it better, and we will continue to make it better.
