SAN ANTONIO — Clemens High School is in the market for a boys basketball coach.
Clifton Ellis, who guided Wagner and Clemens to the state tournament twice each in a seven-year span from 2009 to 2015, has resigned at Clemens to become head men's basketball at Temple College.
"I'm excited about the program and the opportunity that it presents," Ellis said Tuesday morning. "I've been a high school coach for 20 years, and this is a new challenge for me.
"I'm looking forward to going back to Temple. I had a great experience when I went to school there."
A 1995 Roosevelt graduate, Ellis played basketball at Temple and Texas State before starting his coaching career. He succeeds Kirby Johnson, who retired at Temple this year after 33 seasons as the Leopards' head coach.
“Coach Johnson was at Temple for so long that I thought I may retire before him," Ellis, 43, said with a chuckle. "There's that saying that you don't follow a legend, but Coach Johnson used to joke and throw it out there.
"He'd say, 'One day when I retire' and he got serious this year when he had all the players go back for his last home game. He talked to me about the great things about the job. It kind of just took off from there."
Temple is a public community college in the Central Texas town of Temple. It plays in the Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference and is affiliated with the National Junior College Athletic Association.
Ellis has gone 367-133 in 14 seasons as a high school coach, six at Wagner and eight at Clemens. He compiled a 167-52 record at Wagner and was 200-81 at Clemens, where he led the Buffaloes to their first state-tournament appearance in 2014. Ellis' teams won seven district championships in 14 seasons and missed the playoffs only twice.
Ellis was an assistant coach under Mike Wacker at Judson for four seasons and became Wagner’s first boys basketball head coach when the school opened in 2005. He coached the Thunderbirds for six varsity seasons before moving to Clemens in 2012.
Ellis led both Wagner and Clemens to back-to-back berths in the state tournament, the Thunderbirds in 2009 and 2010 and the Buffaloes in 2014 and 2015.
Led by future NBA players Jordan Clarkson and Andre Roberson, Wagner lost in the state semifinals in their first two state-tournament appearances. Clemens also lost in the 2014 and 2015 state semifinals.
Ellis completed his college career at Texas State in 1999 and remained at the school as a student assistant before graduating in May 2000. He started his coaching career with a one-year stint at South San Antonio in 2000 and moved to Judson in 2001.
Ellis missed going to the state tournament as a senior at Roosevelt in 1995 when eventual state champion East Central edged the Rough Riders 92-91 in one of the most exciting Region IV-5A finals in history.
Ellis was a standout point guard at Temple for two seasons and was a two-year starter at the same position under coach Mike Miller at Texas State.
An only child, Ellis was born to Army parents in Tacoma, Wash. He moved to San Antonio when he was in the second grade.
Ellis and his wife, Aletha, have two sons, Clifton Jermaine Jr., 10 and Aiden, 8.
