BY IVAN SANDERS

STAR STAFF

ivan.sanders@elizabethton.com

Every baseball player that grows up wanting to pursue a coaching career after their playing days are done dreams about coming back to the place where it all started.

For many, that dream never materializes but for those few that do it marks an extraordinary realization that sometimes dreams do come true.

Such is the case for Happy Valley’s Todd Caldwell who was named on Tuesday as the new head baseball coach for the Warrior baseball team.

Caldwell was an all-around athlete in his playing days on Warrior Hill playing football, basketball, and baseball all four years getting All-State honors his senior year in both football and baseball.

After graduation in 2006, Caldwell played baseball for ETSU for one year before transferring to Milligan College to finish out his collegiate career earning an NAIA Gold Glove.

After graduating college with his teaching degree, Caldwell taught one year at Happy Valley Elementary in 2013-14 and moved to the high school where he has taught ever since.

Caldwell has been visible in the coaching circles at the school serving as an assistant football coach at Happy Valley Middle for one year while serving as the head baseball coach at the middle school level for two years.

He has been an assistant football coach at Happy Valley High School for five years and served under former head coach Brad Hill and the baseball program for the last three years.

“It’s super special and obviously makes me very emotional thinking about it because it hasn’t really set in yet,” said Caldwell on taking over the Warrior helm. “I am very blessed. I have had the opportunity to play for a lot of great coaches and coached with some very special coaches.

“I am super excited. I haven’t even had time to set down and reflect on it.”

Caldwell realizes that he has several challenges ahead especially playing in the tough Three Rivers Conference with teams like Unicoi Co., Elizabethton, Sullivan East, and Sullivan South always battling for the top spot.

One of his primary goals is helping the Warriors get back to the proud tradition of teams past where Happy Valley’s name is in the mix for conference championships and post-season play.

“I mainly want to get Warrior baseball back to where it use to be because there have a lot of special players that have passed through without having a lot of success,” Caldwell stated. “We want to get the tradition back for Happy Valley baseball.

“We have a great group coming back—it’s a great core. They have been working hard, but the ball has not bounced the way we would have liked.”