Shane Corley is the new High School Boys Soccer Head Coach for Clayton-Bradley Academy. He spent the previous 12 seasons as the boys and girls soccer coach at Alcoa, taking both teams to the Class A state tournament this past season before stepping down in May. He takes over for Caleb Lucas, who was hired by Clayton-Bradley as its first head coach in 2020 and did a great job in laying the foundation to start the program. Coach Lucas has now moved on to working full time with Knoxville's FC Alliance Club Soccer Program. 

For Athletic Director Grant Redmond, it’s a chance to grow Clayton-Bradley’s athletics program with an experienced coach with an impressive resume as it moves from the independent ranks to the TSSAA Division II in 2023. “I really enjoyed the conversations I had with Shane. Just his experience and his character and how he runs a program. From talking with him and people that know the program that Alcoa has had over the past decade with him at the helm, I was pumped. I was really excited. For a school like us that’s getting started, for us to have somebody with that kind of experience at that level, it’s huge.”
 
For Corley, taking the job was also embracing the challenge of taking over a new program and having the chance to build it up to a championship level while navigating it through a new era in athletics in the TSSAA. “For me, the excitement is to be able to build something from the ground floor again and really set up a base and start a program. That’s appealing. It’s the opportunity to go in and start over again. We’ve had a lot of success before and accomplished a lot and it’s nice to go in and get a fresh start with everything. It will be a new group, a young group over there that will be excited to get started and hopefully build off of what they accomplished in their first season. One of the things I told Grant and he knows this, I’m extremely competitive,” Corley said. “I will want us to win, but being brand new, we have to understand that there are going to be some limitations and there’s going to be some growing pains along the way. The end goal is to produce a product that will continue to get better and that will have success and win down the line.”

Corley continued, "I am excited to make this change in my coaching career. My passion is in being a leader and role model for our youth and teaching the beautiful game of soccer. The opportunity to come to this school and help build a foundation and hopefully a tradition of success is something I'm really looking forward to. I think my experience matched with the vision and goals of the CBA staff will benefit the soccer program with growth and success. I'm a competitive person and I hope to build a program where our student athletes demonstrate their competitiveness and leadership abilities on the soccer field and in the classroom." 

Go Blazers!