Jared Hensley
photo by Dennis Norwood/File Photo
Soddy-Daisy baseball coach Jared Hensley has added a new role to his duties.
Hensley, who has coached the baseball Trojans for eight years with a 177-111 record and state tournament appearances in 2011 and 2015, is the school’s new athletic director.
Hensley takes over for Steve Henry, now the school’s principal.
“With coach Henry now the man in charge at our school,” Hensley said Wednesday, “I’m taking over his responsibilities as the AD and I’m excited that he chose me. I love all sports and I’m usually at a lot of games besides baseball, so this gives me a chance to stop by practices and get to know the kids better, which I haven’t been able to do, or made the time to do, in the past.”
Hensley moves into a job that has drastically changed over the years. It’s not just about taking care of all the different sports anymore.
“Now it’s also about making sure parents are behaving and making sure our athletes show good character and represent our school in the right way,” Henry said. “I stole an athletic contract from Eric Phillips (the former athletic director at Cleveland) – he’s been a friend a long time – and it’s something I felt we needed knowing the way society is now.
“The job is about a lot more than just administering athletics for sure. I enjoyed my time while I was the athletic director. When I replaced Danny (former principal Gilbert), it was the best thing for our athletics to let someone else handle that job.”
Hensley has one primary objective entering his new position: an ambitious upgrade of facilities.
“We’ve got a ton of things in mind,” he said, “but I want to create new opportunities for our athletic teams by improving facilities that need our attention.”
Atop that list of priorities is raising money to renovating the track and when that takes place replacing the grass on the football field with artificial turf.
Hensley believes that will allow other Trojan sports to take advantage of those upgrades, plus provide opportunities for middle school and community events as well.
The new AD said the school already has raised $150,000 designated for the track and that community members have started a Trojan Fund with those funds gong directly toward facility upgrades. He hopes to get additional backing from city officials.
“If we can do that, it would be a big step in the right direction as we pick up our efforts a notch to improve our facilities,” Hensley said. “We’ll be getting a lot more information out to the community about the Trojan Fund as soon as possible.”
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)