Wadley’s Shenan Motley accepts job at Beauregard

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When a team with only a handful of seniors wins a state championship like the Wadley Bulldogs did last year, that school’s fans naturally envision a shot at going back-to-back.

Wadley may still have that opportunity this year, but they will have to do it without the coach that guided them to that first title.

Wadley head coach Shenan Motley confirmed to the Leader Monday that he has accepted the head coaching job at Beauregard. That hire had not yet been made official as it was still pending approval by the Lee County Board of Education, a step that was considered a formality going into Tuesday night’s meeting of that board.

Motley admitted the bittersweet nature of changing jobs less than six months after hoisting a state championship trophy, and doing it with many of the players who will make up the core of this year’s team as well.

“I came to Wadley to retire. But for some reason I’m being led to go this route. The hard part about it is I feel like I’m leaving a championship team. That’s a tough decision that I’m going to make. But I feel like I’m making a decision that’s going to be the best for me and my family,” Motley said, before adding, “It’s probably one of the best teams I’ve ever coached, no doubt. That’s what’s heartbreaking to me. But I’m weighing a lot of factors too.”

It’s a leap in terms of school size for Motley, who spent six years at Wadley after working as an asisstant at the 1A level for most of his career prior to that. Beauregard is a 5A school that currently competes in the same region as Central of Clay County. Beauregard won a 5A state title as recently as 2016.

“We didn’t ever really have a true second team [at Wadley],” Motley said. “We’d have five or six guys that we’d move around, and we’d make it work. But our second string was our junior high. There, I’m going to have probably a third string as well. You’re talking about going from about 35 guys to about 80.”

Having more players – and more assistant coaches – will be an adjustment for Motley. He admitted his new job will require more time during the week just managing a larger group of people. But once that adjustment is made he said that he’ll naturally fall back into what has made him a successful head coach.

“Football is football,” he said. “It all involves pretty much the same thing. And the kids kind of remind me of the kids here at Wadley. They’re just going to be tough, gritty country kids. I’m excited about it.”

Wadley is losing a coach that took the program to unprecedented heights. Motley went 51-22 in his six seasons and had the team in the playoffs every season. He won three region titles, but more importantly, he was able to guide the team to the Class 1A state championship game twice, finishing as the state runner-up in 2021 and winning the title in 2024. Prior to those two championship game appearances, Wadley had never reached that final round of the playoffs. Motley was named the Class 1A coach of the year twice by the Alabama Sportswriters Association.

The Bulldogs have an uber-talented roster headlined by four-star edge defender and all-state running back Jaquez Wilkes. Wilkes ran for over 300 yards in last year’s state championship game and earned MVP honors in that game. He is ranked as the No. 78 player in the country in the class of 2026 by the 247 Sports composite rankings and has made visits to Auburn, Alabama, Texas A&M and Miami, among others.

But Wadley also has three more all-state players returning to its roster in DB/WR Frisco Robertson, lineman Jabari Burns and running back Cortavion Lynch. With all of those players returning, whoever comes in as the new head coach could very well be taking over Class 1A’s preseason No. 1 team.

As for Motley, he said he’ll take the same approach to the Beauregard job as he did when he was hired at Wadley.
“I’m looking at this like I looked at coming to Wadley. I’m going there to retire,” he said. “They may not want me that long, or depending on how successful we are, but that’s my mindset going into it.