Coach of the year
- Updated: August 31, 2024
After guiding the Choccolocco Monsters to a Sunbelt League championship, league honors Clayton with top coaching award.
By Joe Medley
East Alabama Sports Today
The calendar will flip to September on Sunday, and Ricky Ray Clayton is back to life as he knew it before his championship summer.
He’s back to teaching driver’s education at Etowah High School. He’s gearing up for the prep baseball season, as a Blue Devils assistant coach.
Oh, and he’s coaching his 4-year-old son, quite a departure from the college players he coached this past summer.
And what a summer it was for the Choccolocco Monsters’ skipper.
“It was a fun summer,” Clayton said.
After coaching the Monsters to their Sunbelt League title, Clayton enters fall with one more smile from summer. He learned Friday that he was named Sunbelt coach of the year.
“It’s just a blessing,” Clayton said. “It’s the good Lord’s blessing. I’m so thankful and grateful, but there’s so many other people that should be involved in it.
“That award, it should say organization.”
The Monsters announced their move back to Oxford in late spring, after playing the 2023 season in Columbus, Ga. The team hired Top Gun Athletic owner Roby Brooks as general manager, and Brooks hired Clayton as head coach.
The Sunbelt League is a wood-bat league for college players. Brooks and Clayton assembled a roster of 27 players late into the Sunbelt offseason and produced a championship team.
The Monsters, who play their home games on Choccolocco Park’s signature field, finished 22-9, the league’s only team to win at least 20 games. They swept the Atlanta Crackers in the league’s championship series.
First baseman/right fielder/pitcher Hayes Harrison, league ERA leader Dawson Campbell and closer Avery Campbell made the all-league team.
The Monsters won the league title despite losing a handful of players with injuries or college obligations that caused them to leave before the season ended. The list included Campbell and the top two hitters in the order, Rashad Robinson and Cole Tremaine.
“The key was just staying with the same plan the whole summer,” Clayton said. “Nothing really ever changed, and I feel like the foundation we had, it didn’t matter what was going to happen. It was still the foundation of the whole summer, and then it turned into the next-man-up mentality. …
“There was never a time where I heard anybody say anything, or anybody look at anybody and say, ‘Oh no, what are we going to do?’”
Brooks called Clayton “the heartbeat of the team.”
“He put so much time and effort into this behind the scenes that nobody knows about, and that’s the reason that he led them to the championship season they had,” Brooks said. “He’s a faith-based guy, and that’s way more important than any game they won or championship.
“What he instilled in these young men is gonna last a lifetime. Ricky Ray is a one-of-a-kind guy, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
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