From Slam Dunk King to Teacher to Coach: Jay Shropshire Named CHS JV Basketball Coach

Jay Shropshire’s basketball journey has come full circle. The Chattooga High School graduate, first-year teacher, and longtime youth basketball coach has now been named the school’s new JV basketball coach — adding another chapter to a story already built around leading kids both on the court and in the classroom.

Shropshire, 27, graduated from Chattooga High School in 2017 before continuing his basketball career at South Georgia State College, where he played NJCAA Division I JUCO basketball and earned his Associate in Arts degree. He went on to Shorter University, where he competed in NCAA Division II basketball while earning a bachelor’s degree.

This year, Shropshire stepped into his first full-time teaching role as a second- and third-grade Special Education Inclusion Teacher at Leroy Massey Elementary.

Long before stepping into a classroom, Shropshire had already built a reputation across Northwest Georgia through his work coaching youth basketball with the NWGA Rising Stars Elite program, where players affectionately know him as “Coach Shrop.” Coaching, he’s said, has been a dream of his for years, shaped by a lifetime of playing basketball from grade school through college.

That experience coaching young players, Shropshire has said, played a direct role in his decision to become a full-time teacher — he realized just how much of an impact he could have on kids not only on the court, but in their everyday lives.

“I just could tell what I was doing or what I was saying to them, it really mattered,” Shropshire said. “Especially once I started my AAU team, just seeing the way they were engaged with me and listening to me and giving me their undivided attention, that’s when I knew, I could do this for sure.”

Shropshire has said his goal, above all, is to be a role model — the kind of teacher and coach students remember long after they’ve moved on.

“The biggest thing for me is I want to be a role model. I want to be one of those teachers and coaches that they don’t forget,” Shropshire said.

Now, as he takes on the role of JV basketball coach at Chattooga High School, Shropshire adds coaching at his own alma mater to a résumé that already includes teaching, youth coaching, and a college playing career — continuing a journey that’s taken him from standout player, to teacher, to coach, all within the same community that shaped him.

* Quotes from a recent profile in The Summerville News*