Since the new men’s basketball coach Mark Fox completed his coaching staff in mid-July, interest surrounding the Georgia basketball program has picked up drastically.

General admission ticket sales have now begun and the Athletic Association hopes to convert that interest into season ticket sales with the addition of the new coachmarkfox.com Web site and viral video.

“With help from the new media staff, we were able to shoot the videos with the coaching staff on site at the Practice Facility and film room,” said Emily Deitz, director of promotions.

“We then sent the material to a company located outside Arizona. They had a great innovative plan to add personal effects, like the phone call at the end from Coach Fox.”

The video has started to circulate among many students around campus thanks to media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

“I saw the Web site on one of my friend’s Facebook pages,” said Gabriella Baetti, a sophomore from Roswell majoring in magazines. “You can enter your information and Coach Fox calls you to get you pumped about the team, coaching staff and competitive schedule for both home and away games.

“The Mark Fox Web site is a great way for UGA and the community to get involved and excited about the upcoming season. I know I cannot wait until basketball starts back up.”

The Web site is similar to markricht.com but has taken a more high-tech approach. The site is something that Fox himself believes will fill Stegeman Coliseum come November.

“The key component in a successful program is fan support,” Fox said. “Its important to have the stands filled, especially with students. They are the ones that bring the energy and help motivate the players on the court.”

But coachmarkfox.com isn’t the only Web site in the plans for the Athletic Association. With Suzanne Yoculan stepping down this season, the gymnastics team has itself a new coach as well in longtime assistant Jay Clark. The new Gym Dog leader will get the same treatment as Fox in a couple months.

“We plan to launch a similar site for the Gym Dogs and Coach Jay Clark in October,” Deitz said. “Our goal is to create an interactive site that gets users excited about the new coaches and programs.”