Clay Atwood was recently hired to be the Atoka head baseball coach for the 2025-2026 school year. He replaces Trevor Cook, who led the Wampus Cats to a 6-28 record a season ago. Atwood will also be an assistant football coach at Atoka.
“Mr. Atwood brings so much to our district beyond his baseball experience, which is impressive. His passion for classroom teaching was evident in his interview and we were confident he would impact our high school beyond the baseball program.
“Finally, his experience playing and coaching football along with his relationship with Coach (Luke) Ring was exciting as we wanted to bolster our football staff. Overall, we felt Mr. Atwood would be a wonderful addition to our Wampus Cat Family,” Christopher Karch, Atoka Public Schools Superintendent said.
For the past two seasons, Atwood was the Marietta baseball head coach where he helped improve the teams win total by 7 in year two as Marietta went 3-22 in 2024 and 10-18 in 2025. Atwood started his public schools coaching career in 2021 at Cushing as an assistant baseball coach.
He has coached in the Oklahoma Drillers Collegiate League since 2020. Atwood is a 2016 graduate of Ardmore High School, he then went on to play college baseball at Southwestern Christian University where he accumulated 174 career hits.
“My thoughts on the (Atoka) community is that they are great people that value their youth. Not just in athletics. The community wants you to be hard on their kiddos and love them just the same. There is a consistent commitment to excellence and a high standard across the board,” Atwood said.
This summer, Atwood has had his team focus on the process, not the result. He stated that baseball is a game of failure so he wants his team to learn to adapt to ensure everyone is getting better, not just in athletes but in life as well. He wants to instill accountability as they always have the choice and any choice will affect the people around them.
“We will be very disciplined, detailed, and tough. I want to attack the game day in and day out. We will out hustle every team we play regardless of the outcome. I’m a pressure based coach, I want to apply pressure in every area of the game. Attack the baseball at the plate.
“Attack the strike zone on the mound. Apply pressure on teams by running the bags hard and playing small ball. I’m an old school style coach. Talent comes and goes but toughness and fundamentals will be consistent. Their job is to give me their best effort. My job is to make them better than they thought they ever could be. Not just as players but young men,” Atwood said.
He is married to Macy Atwood and together they have two dogs Bear and Ruby.
