Lutheran South’s Joe Cox named Missouri Mock Trial Coach of the Year

For 19 years, Joe Cox has coached Lutheran High School South’s mock trial team. When he began, Cox was leading a group of six or seven students alone — now, the team has grown to five times the size. After two decades of commitment to the school’s mock trial, Cox was named the Missouri Mock Trial Coach of the Year.

"It’s been a real joy to be a part of (mock trial), and I get a chance to work with some of the best kids that there are,” Cox said. “It really has become a passion of mine.”

The award was presented to Cox during the Missouri High School Mock Trial Competition, held in downtown St. Louis from March 27-29. The Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis is responsible for organizing the state competition and presenting the awards.

The announcement took Cox by surprise. Two of his students, junior Freya Blackman and senior Kevin Friel, rose to make speeches and presented him with his award at the competition.

“It was really touching,” Cox said. “Not just to receive the award, but specifically to hear how much being involved in the program and working with them has touched their lives — those two, in particular, as well as the rest of the team.”

Besides being Lutheran South’s mock trial coach for so many years, Cox is also responsible for giving his students the chance to practice in a courtroom — or the closest to a real courtroom as they can get on school grounds. 

In 2020, when school was out due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cox masked up and constructed a courtroom complete with a witness stand and jury box. The team received funding from a private donor, which allowed Cox to do so. That courtroom is where mock trial practices are held three times a week during the season; it doubles as a classroom for Lutheran South students.

“We have an opportunity that we’re able to do our practices in the courtroom,” Cox said. “The students have that really neat experience to be comfortable and experienced in that set-up.”

Cox was nominated for Coach of the Year by his students. He told one story of walking down the hall at Lutheran South when a student shouted, “Hey, Pastor Cox!” He joked with the student, asking if they’d said it so loudly as a way to warn other students to cut out bad behavior before he got there. After the state competition, the student came up to him and confessed — their fellow students had been working on the nomination at the time, and they had been the lookout.

“I’ve won other teaching awards, and I don’t say that to toot my own horn, but the fact that it came from the students and to hear the meaningful things they had to say really impacted me,” Cox said. “That’s going to be something I treasure for the rest of my life.”

Cox made a point to thank his students, as well as the community of parents, administration and alumni who support Lutheran South’s mock trial team in their own ways.

“This award isn’t about me as a coach as much as the legacy of a community who support each other,” Cox said. “I’m just one member of the team who has some unique roles, but just as I support and guide the rest of the team, so also I’m supported and held accountable by the team.”