Riley Fox, currently a rising junior at Yale University, graduated from West Hartford’s Conard High School in 2024, where he was a 3-year All-State basketball player and the state’s high school player of the year as a senior. 

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

Riley Fox left a lasting mark on the record books at Conard High School and West Hartford and Connecticut public schools in his four years playing basketball for the team now known as the Red Wolves.

He was the 2023-24 Connecticut High School Coaches Association Player of the Year, a three-time All-State and four-time All-Conference selection. In his four years in West Hartford, he scored a school record 2,166 career points which was also 17th most in Connecticut history.

The school record books carry his name in almost every offensive category including first, second, and third places for single season scoring with 736 points (29.2 avg.) in his senior year, 632 points as a sophomore, and 571 points as a freshman. The 6-6 forward is about to enter his junior and possibly biggest season with the Yale Bulldogs. But that does not mean he’s taking it easy as the worlds of college athletics, college academics, and life itself are all competing for his time.

“I’m in New York City for six weeks working four days a week for private equity firm,” the economics major said recently in a phone interview. “The opportunity came and I wanted to see the other side of the professional world. Real world experience is cool to get.”

It has made Fox adjust his workout schedule as well, now hitting the gym and courts at night after work. “I’m lifting at night and working out with an AAU teammate after work now in New York, trying to set myself up to be successful when season comes,” he said. Fox is hoping the hard work leads to a bigger role with the Bulldogs, who lost three starting seniors and will have just one returning starter from a team that went 24-7 and won the Ivy League regular season title but lost the Conference Tournament in overtime.

“My sophomore season the role opened as two seniors graduated. Once they were gone and I could step into those minutes and I was super excited to go out and play and have a great year,” he said. “It is a confidence things as well.”

Last season he saw his minutes and points nearly double, playing in 31 games for the team. His 45 3-pointers were second on the team and he was one of just five players to average double digit points (10.0ppg). Fox averaged 18 minutes a game and scored in double digits in 14 games. “The pace of play is so much quicker and, guys are faster and stronger than high school. You come in behind and you have to catch up as fast as you can. I’ve put on 18 pounds of muscle since I got here,” he said, giving full credit to the team’s strength coaches.

Fox said that the habits he developed at Conard while playing school hoops, AAU basketball, and being a student have helped him balance all he has going on now. “My habits at Conard set me up for success,” said Fox. “I was pretty good at getting school work done before basketball. Now you don’t have a lot of time, when I have 30 minutes I work on something I may have to finish later in the day.”

This May he earned a gold medal representing the USA in the 2026 FISU 3x America’s Cup basketball tournament in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He and three Yale teammates – Jordan Brathwaite, Trevor Mullin, and Jack Sullivan – were coached to an unbeaten 5-0 record by Kelly Combs from Sports Reach. The organization uses sports to break down barriers and give people from around the world exposure to each other on a personal level. The win qualifies Team USA for the World Championships next year in China.

Playing as team USA Blue, they won all five games, averaging 20 points per game, defeating teams from Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Chile, and Mexico. The games brought 130 athletes from 21 countries from across the continent to play in both men’s and women’s games. “Coach Kelly recruited me to go to Honduras and I thought it would be cool to play with three teammates,” Fox said of the games. “I had d a pretty interesting time and it was a really cool experience to go out and play for my country for the first time.”

Fox was actually recruited to play a year earlier but had to turn it out for what turned out to be a scary medical situation. “When I got to Yale they did a bunch of screenings and my EKG was abnormal,” Fox recalled. I got an echocardiogram and they found I had ASD (atrial septal defect). The walls of heart never formed. I played my freshman year and they told me I could have had a stroke if it had not been dealt with.”

Over the summer he had robotic surgery. “It is a difficult thing to go through as they had to stop my heart,” he said. Fox said it took about a month and a half to get back on the court after the surgery to fix the birth defect.

What he went through is inspiring him to give back to community and help others avoid what he went through. “I am holding a three-day basketball camp end of July and I want to get the Heart Association involved and would like to see the kids get free EKGs.” The camp will be at Hall High School (he joked about the coincidence) from July 28-30 from 6-8:30 p.m.

“I want to get my foot in door and start something I can have every year and give back to kids and teach them what I have learned.” Former Northwest Catholic standout Guy Ragland, Jr., who plays professionally in Europe, will also be on hand along with an assistant coach and an athletic trainer and a strength coach from Yale. Registration is through the West Hartford Leisure Services: https://westhartford.recdesk.com/Community/Member/Login

When he gets back on the court this winter for Yale, Fox hopes that he has followed his plan and that of head coach James Jones, the all-time winningest men’s basketball coach at the school. “I’m trying to set myself up to be successful when season comes. Coach Jones told me I need to have a first-team league season and keep doing what I am doing but on a bigger scale.”

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