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By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
For most people, becoming the director of Birmingham CrossPlex might read like the culmination of decades of work.
For Kenneth Cox Jr., it feels more like confirmation.
“God wastes nothing,” Cox said during a recent interview, returning to the phrase again and again as if it were both testimony and compass. “He wastes absolutely nothing… from the beginning to the end and everything in between.”
That belief runs through every chapter of his story.
Today, Cox leads one of Birmingham’s most visible public venues — a sprawling sports and events complex that welcomes athletes, families and visitors from across the country. But long before he was overseeing national championships and helping shape the future of the CrossPlex, he was a kid in a small North Carolina town simply trying to figure out what came next.
Rooted in Consistency
Born and raised in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, Cox grew up in a home rooted in consistency. His parents still live in the same house the family moved into when he was in fifth grade.
Track entered his life at age eight and never really left.
He went on to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he competed in track and field and earned a degree in communications in 1999.
“A lot of people say, ‘Division I,’” Cox said with a laugh. “In ’95, when I was a freshman at UNC, it was just college … For me, it’s where God led me and where I had an opportunity to really lean into all the things He was preparing me for.”
After graduation, Cox stepped into corporate America, joining Nokia during its peak.
“Nokia was the Apple of the 90s,” he said.
The career was stable. Promotions followed. One moved him from North Carolina to Atlanta.
But something felt off.
“The glamour and all that stuff of being in corporate America got really old,” Cox said. “I said, ‘Man, I need to do something else. I need to follow my passion.’”
His passion was track.
That realization led him away from boardrooms and back onto fields and tracks, where he volunteered with youth programs before eventually coaching at Emory University.
But coaching became more than performance and competition.
Working with athletes helped him recognize something deeper.
“I realized I didn’t want to babysit young adults,” he said. “I wanted to coach them and mentor them and give them the authentic representation they needed to prepare themselves for whatever came after those four years.”
Then came a detour.
Cox and his wife — a psychiatrist he met at UNC — planned to move back home to North Carolina. Jobs were lined up. Plans were in motion.
Then the coaching offer disappeared.
His wife had already signed a contract.
Suddenly, certainty vanished.
Then Birmingham called.
A coach at Birmingham-Southern invited him to visit.
Cox resisted at first.
“First of all, I’m not moving to Birmingham,” he remembers thinking.
Then he stepped onto campus.
“The first time I was at Birmingham-Southern, I just fell in love. It was peaceful. It was exactly what I needed.”
What was meant to be temporary became permanent.
His wife initially gave him one year to “get Birmingham-Southern out of his system.”
Eighteen years later, they’re still here.
A Season of Preparation
Cox spent 16 years at Birmingham-Southern, first as assistant coach and later as head coach and associate athletic director. Under his leadership, the track and field program became a national force, earning conference championships and national titles while consistently qualifying for NCAA competition.
Even as the college faced financial challenges and ultimately closed, Cox stayed.
“I was there to the very end,” he said.
That season of loss became another season of preparation.
In 2020, amid uncertainty and the pandemic, Cox enrolled to pursue his MBA.
Within months, he earned promotions, academic recognition, and expanded leadership opportunities.
Years earlier, someone had once told him at the CrossPlex: You’re going to be a director one day.
He brushed it off.
Now he walks those same halls as director.
Servant Leader, Husband, Father
One of his favorite reminders hangs nearby — a photo from 2018, when one of his teams won a national championship inside the building he now oversees.
“I see it every single day,” he said. “It just reminds me of how good God is and just how faithful He is.”
Yet ask Cox what leadership means, and his answer isn’t strategy or titles.
It’s service.
“I don’t walk around here in a posture that I’m in charge,” he said. “I get a chance to serve.”
His vision for CrossPlex is simple: whether someone is visiting Birmingham for the first time or the hundredth time, they should leave feeling welcome.
“We have a responsibility to make sure they feel amazing,” he said.
But behind the titles and accolades, Cox is quick to point to the role he values most: husband and father.
He and his wife — whom he describes as his “bride” — have been married since 2002 and will celebrate 24 years of marriage in October. The two met at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she later completed medical school before building her own career as a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist.
Together, they’ve built a life centered on faith, intentionality and family.
The couple has three children: an oldest daughter who recently completed her freshman year and is now a rising sophomore at LSU, a 15-year-old son who attends Hoover High School and competes in baseball and track, and their youngest daughter, 11, who plays tennis and, according to Cox, has already shown signs of becoming an artist in her own right.
“She writes poetry,” he said with a smile. “I’m like, ‘My God, man.’”
Cox believes fatherhood has shaped every part of who he is.
“I’m a better coach because I’m a father and a husband,” he said. “And I do believe that I’m a better leader because of those same things too. They prepared me for all of this.”
Intentional Space
For someone who oversees one of Birmingham’s busiest venues, free time isn’t abundant — but when he gets it, Cox protects it.
He works out six days a week, splitting time between running and lifting weights, calling exercise a place of reflection and connection.
“That’s where I hear from God,” he said.
He and his wife also make intentional space for each other. Date nights often include trying new restaurants — especially Thai food — attending concerts, shopping, traveling with friends and enjoying art together.
Family remains at the center of everything.
His son’s sports schedule, his daughters’ activities and simply being what he jokingly calls the family’s “forever Uber driver” fill much of his calendar.
“My circle, my crew is my crew,” Cox said. “We pray for each other, we hold each other up … It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty cool.”
At 48, Cox says he’s having the time of his life.
He is still coaching in many ways — just from a different lane.
And if there’s one lesson he hopes people take from his journey, it’s this: “If God puts you there, you belong there.”
