Murphy – Adam Clonts is stepping down as Murphy High School’s baseball coach after 10 years, he told the Cherokee Scout in a text message Thursday morning.
Clonts, who teaches kindergarten at Murphy Elementary School, is being promoted to assistant principal at the school in January.
“The demands of the job, and the commitment and I would need to make do to the job and Murphy Elementary, it just overrides it,” Clonts said. “The needs here are greater because of the administrative role.”
The Bulldogs went 146-56-1 in Clonts’ nine seasons as head coach, winning four Smoky Mountain Conference championships, two 1A West Regional championships and the 1A state championship in 2018. After winning the Western Regional championship but falling short in the state championship in 2017, Murphy finished the job the next year for the program’s first – and only – state title.
Last spring, the Bulldogs went 14-6 overall and 9-1 in the conference, sharing the SMC title with Swain County before falling to Eastern Randolph, 6-1, in the first round of the state playoffs.
“We’ve been blessed with exceptional players in my time as head coach that have come from good families,” Clonts said. “We’ve had good support from them and the county level. That’s just helped us continue to build and win a lot of baseball games. …
“I had good assistant coaches. …They were the fuel behind the fire you could say. They had a lot of good insight, a lot of good input. Just a whole team effort, there’s a lot to the success to everything that’s happened.”