Stephen Crenshaw is ready to get back to doing what he loves – empowering and impacting students, helping to shape them into the best leaders, and preparing them to be successful men and women.
Tuesday, Headmaster Penny Mitchell introduced Crenshaw as the new athletic director of Carroll Academy. Crenshaw takes over as athletic director after former AD Coach Tommy Acy took a position at Pillow Academy.
One may believe Crenshaw was led to the position he’s in now. He said he began working in human resources and worked in that capacity for 20 years.
“They began to downsize the department,” he said.
Crenshaw said he got into coaching out of necessity and found he loved it. He said his son was in still in school and was heavily involved in athletics. It morphed into Crenshaw doing volunteer coaching to doing it full time for Kirk Academy.
“I started at Kirk in 2009, and I stayed until 2018,” he said.
While at Kirk, Crenshaw coached football, basketball, track.
“And at one time, I coached all five of those sports at one time. When you’re 40 to 45, you can do that. I can’t do that now,” he said, laughing.
Crenshaw said he got out of coaching again and became self-employed, until the opportunity at Carroll Academy presented itself.
“I missed it. I missed the kids, I missed dealing with the parents. I missed it. Once you get it in your blood, it’s hard to get it out,” he said.
Crenshaw is also a history teacher. He and Mitchell said right now, it’s not completely certain of what area he’ll teach, but it’ll be in the realm of history.
“We’re still working that out,” Mitchell said.
Crenshaw said he’s excited to work with the students, coaches, faculty, and staff at Carroll Academy.
“When you have a small school like this, it becomes like a family, and you want to produce students who will go out and do great things and come back and invest in the school,” he said. “You don’t want a student who has a bad experience and says ‘I hate that school. I’m never going back.’ You want to make their experience enjoyable, that’s all that I want.”
Crenshaw and his wife, Christi, live in Grenada and have three children, Taylor, Hillary and Colt. They also have two grandchildren. For Crenshaw, he gets to see a new generation come up that will hopefully have a love for sports as he has.
“People know if they get me started, I can talk about my grandkids all day,” he said.
Crenshaw, addressing the coaches, said that he wants to continue the legacy that Carroll has – a winning one.
“They not only win on the field, they win in the classroom as well, and I want to continue that,” he said.
He told coaches that if they have any questions or concerns, or if a parent has one, to call him and let him know.
Mitchell said that she’s excited to have Crenshaw on board at Carroll and believes that he will do great as the new AD.
