Clay Coach Lending Hand To Four Teams

Jermaine McElvain has spent the better part of a decade coaching basketball in the Upper Cumberland and this winter he has his hands full with being a coach on three different Clay County basketball teams.

McElvain will be the head coach for 7th and 8th grade girls at Celina K-8 and an assistant coach for the high school’s boys and girls team. He said when asked which team he prefers to coach, the answer is simple, all of them.

“To me, basketball is basketball,” McElvain said. “The high school girls, the high school boys, Coach Rob, Coach Matt and then you know I’m down at the K-8. I bring the same energy and intensity to the K-8 girls that I would the high school boys. And the same thing from the high school boys to the high school girls.”

Along with his three basketball programs, McElvain is the head coach for Clay County High cross country. He said his passion for coaching comes from the coaches of his youth, coaches that poured love and care into their craft for the betterment of kids.

“I grew up in a single parent home, it was just my mom raising me and my sister,” McElvain said. “It goes back to my upbringing. I had a baseball coach who really believed in me. He was like a father figure Coach Tyrone Batts. And anytime I’m coaching, I see him in the back of my mind.”

After coaching stops at multiple Putnam County middle schools, Cookeville High and the head coach position for Clarkrange boys, McElvain said Clay County is a special place.

He said disregarding the sports aspect of his role, he has found a place where he feels at home.

“Everybody is very welcoming and very family oriented,” McElvain said. “It’s one big family, no matter if it’s the students, faculty and staff or administration, everybody is very caring.”