Clarksville Academy hires Steadman Bell as football coach

Clarksville Academy has hired Steadman Bell as its new head football coach.

Bell, who spent the last six years as an assistant at Nashville Christian, replaces Scott Murray, who departed to be the coach at White House Heritage after two seasons at Clarksville Academy.

"Steadman Bell is the kind of man we want growing our athletes," Clarksville Academy athletic director Matt Hoppe said in a release. "His knowledge of football, passion for coaching, positive attitude, and drive for leading great athletes and great men were just a few of the qualities we wanted in a Head Coach. He has a reputation for being a strong leader on and off the field. We have a solid program at CA, and we want to see it continue to grow. The next few years are critical to the success of football at CA, and I am confident Coach Bell is the man to lead us."

Bell was a two-sport standout at Dickson County graduating in 2008. He then played basketball at Columbia State Community College before transferring to Langston University, an NAIA school in Oklahoma, where he returned to football and played long snapper in addition to his primary position of wide receiver.

At Langston, Bell's head coach was Mickey Joseph, who was an assistant coach at LSU and the interim coach at Nebraska last season.

"(Joseph) was like, 'Hey man, look, if you wanna get on the field, special teams is the way to do it," Bell said.

After graduating college, Bell coached at his alma mater and was on the staff at Vanderbilt in 2016 before moving to Nashville Christian in 2017. He coached wide receivers for the Eagles, who reached the DII-A state championship game in 2021 and 2022.

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Bell always harbored dreams of being a head coach, dating back to his days playing for his adoptive father, Jeremiah Satterfield, in middle school and seeing the impact Satterfield had on his players. Jayden Satterfield, Bell's younger brother, played for Nashville Christian from 2019 to 2022, and Bell told himself that he'd start looking for head coach openings after Jayden's graduation.

Clarksville Academy, another small private school in DII-A, proved to be the perfect fit. Principal Jennifer Hinote said that the school had over 50 applicants for the position, but Bell's communication skills and independent school experience helped push him to the top.

"I'm already accustomed to this league, I understand the smallness of the community, smallness of the school and being able to utilize the athletes to do multiple things," Bell said. "I don't think it's going to be a huge transition at all."

Bell plans to start spring practices in mid-May after taking a week to get acclimated to his new school, where he'll also serve as an admissions and college guidance assistant.

"Biggest thing is just trust: building trust with me, my new terminology, the way I speak, the lingo, because I'll be calling the offense," Bell said. "Just getting those things in place and getting kids out there."

Clarksville Academy went 13-8 under Murray, posting its first two winning seasons since 2014. The Cougars went 6-4 in 2021 and 7-4 in 2022.

Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.