Chunn retiring from coaching
When the Clinton High School boys soccer team begins its 2025 season, it will do so with a new coach.
Gene Chunn, who coached the Dragons for the last three seasons and guided them to a District 5-AA Tournament Championship in 2023, announced his retirement from coaching on Friday.
“I hate this because I know they’re going to have a really good team for the next two or three years, but I just can’t recover like I used to,” Chunn said. “Whoever takes my place is going to be in a good spot.”
Chunn is also relinquishing his duties as an assistant coach with the Clinton football teams. He’s recently served as the team’s kicking coach.
“I’ll be 71 by the time school starts in the fall. I can recover but I just can’t recover like I need to and want too,” said Chunn, who previously served as the head boys soccer coach at Carter High School, where he built the Hornets into a constant contender. “On game days, I would leave home at 7 o’clock in the morning and I wouldn’t get home until 9 or 10 at night.
“In football season, it would be midnight before I got home at midnight. On Sundays, we would get up, go to church and have a good meal, and then, that afternoon, it would be right back to soccer, planning for practice, and preparing for what we were going to do the next week.”
After winning the district title in 2023, the Dragons struggled through a rebuilding campaign on the pitch in 2024, winning just three matches. Through it all, however, Chunn remained upbeat and has nothing but good things to say about the future of the program.
“They’re really going to be good next year. We had a lot of freshmen and underclassmen in the program and they all played a lot this year,” said Chunn, who served as an assistant coach for the Powell girls team before taking over the boys program at Clinton.
Chunn, who resides in East Knox County’s Strawberry Plains Community, is not leaving education. He’s returning to Powell High where he will teach.
“I’m going to teach at Powell a little bit and I’m going to spend more time with my wife and family.”