Jared Hensley has had more than his share of challenges since becoming the athletic director at Soddy Daisy High School a few years ago, but he’s always done a better than average job of finding talented coaches to replace those who had retired or for whatever reason, not been retained.
He was facing two such challenges in recent weeks as the Trojans were looking for a new football coach in addition to someone to lead the Lady Trojan volleyball program.
He is still busy taking applications for the football job, but he now has the next coach in place for the volleyball program and what a great coach he has hired.
Paul Brock, a veteran of more than 40 years of coaching volleyball at all levels, has been named to lead a Soddy Daisy team that advanced to the sectional round before its season ended in a loss to Upperman.
Brock made his name as the head coach at GPS for some 25 years where he led the Bruisers to three state championships and a pair of second place finishes while finishing in the Final Four of the state 14 years in a row. Without question, one of the winningest coaches in the Chattanooga area and the state of Tennessee as a whole, Brock compiled an outstanding record of 821 wins against just 240 losses and was honored as the State Coach of the Year on four occasions.
Not surprising, Brock was inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
Brock, who is a Soddy Daisy graduate and later earned a degree at UT-Knoxville, resigned from GPS in 2016, shortly after his wife Nancy was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away in 2019 and he has been busy raising their two children, 19-year-old Conleigh, who is now a freshman at Tennessee Wesleyan, and 15-year-old Miller, who is currently a freshman at Baylor.
And while he has worked in nuclear chemistry at Sequoyah since 1987, he has never been a high school teacher. Just this past fall, he helped out at Chattanooga Christian. There is a long list of schools where he has volunteered his services in years past as he simply loves the sport of volleyball and is always ready to help someone improve their skills.
Brock is currently on the sideline after having ankle surgery on Monday to correct a ligament that had pulled away from the bone, but he’s anxious and ready to get started in the coming months.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for me as I graduated from Soddy Daisy and grew up in that area. I work at Sequoyah and live about six miles from there today, so it should be a great fit for me,” Brock said in a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon.
“I got my start coaching volleyball at South Young in Knoxville when I was a student at UT under Lori Johnson, who later coached at Soddy Daisy. I’ve watched Soddy Daisy in recent years and they have a ton of outstanding young talent. They had a need and I applied for the job. Everything has worked out well so far,” he continued.
“I have ventured away since my time there as a student, but I’ve come home. I just hope I can bring the luster back to a once-proud program,” the 60-year-old Brock added.
Hensley was simply beside himself with this latest hire.
“We are so happy that Paul has agreed to be our next volleyball coach at Soddy Daisy,” Hensley said on Tuesday evening.
“We are so excited about the experience and success he brings to our program with three state championships and more than 800 wins. More importantly, he’s a graduate of Soddy Daisy High School.
“I’m pretty sure he’s had other coaching opportunities here lately, but I just had to put my best sales pitch together and remind him again just how special this place is. Luckily, it didn’t take too much convincing.
“The late, great Bear Bryant made a comment when he was hired at Alabama many years ago when he said ‘When mama calls, you just have to come running.’ Coaching at your alma mater is a huge honor and most folks aren’t lucky enough to be able to do that, so I’m excited for him to hopefully end his career here where it began,” Hensley added.
Soddy Daisy finished as runner-up to Signal Mountain in both the district and regional tournaments.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)