Savannah Country Day football hires former coach within SEC. What Roc Batten will bring.
Savannah Country Day has hired Roc Batten as the Hornets new football coach, the school announced on Monday in a press release.
Batten has extensive coaching and playing experience. A native of Detroit, he moved to Tennessee to play at Vanderbilt from 1994-1998. He was one of the Commodores top players as a defensive back in his junior season when he had three interceptions and 52 tackles. After an injury cut short his college career, he began coaching at Vanderbilt — starting as a student assistant, then becoming a graduate assistant. In 2001, Vanderbilt hired him full time as a recruiting coordinator and outside linebackers coach as he earned his masters degree.
He started as a high school coach in the Nashville area in 2002. He was an assistant coach for nine years at Montgomery Bell Academy and Ensworth School and played a role in three state championships with the schools. He became the head coach and associate director of admissions at Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, in 2011 and led the team to the state title game twice in eight years.
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He then came back to Ensworth where he led the program for the last five years.
Batten replaces John Mohring, the former All-American linebacker from Georgia Southern, who led the SCD program for the last three seasons before taking the head coaching job last month at Wayne County.
SCD also announced the hiring of James Franklin as the school's new athletic director. For the last nine years, Franklin has been the athletic director in a successful run at The O'Neal School in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Before that, he was a soccer coach for college programs such as Vassar College, Norwich University and the University of Vermont.
A native of England, Franklin came to the United States to play college soccer at Champlain University in Vermont.
Dennis Knight covers sports for the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at Dknight@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @DennisKnightSMN
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Former Vanderbilt standout Roc Batten named football coach at Country Day
