{"id":69529,"date":"2026-06-07T19:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=69529"},"modified":"2026-06-07T19:26:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T23:26:33","slug":"florida-polytechnic-university-appoints-clay-roberts-as-mens-soccer-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/06\/07\/florida-polytechnic-university-appoints-clay-roberts-as-mens-soccer-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Polytechnic University appoints Clay Roberts as men\u2019s soccer coach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is a massive pickup for Florida Poly\u2019s brand-new athletics department. Bringing in Clay Roberts as the first-ever head coach for the men&#8217;s soccer program gives them an instant foundation of local credibility and a proven championship record.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"636253\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/download-2.webp?resize=300%2C168&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-69531 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #636253; aspect-ratio:1.7858803832201655;width:514px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since Florida Poly is just launching its competitive sports programs, hiring someone who essentially built the powerhouse program right down the road at Southeastern University (SEU) is a home run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A quick look at what Roberts brings to the Phoenix:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>A Proven Local Builder:<\/strong> During his tenure at SEU, he became the program&#8217;s all-time winningest coach, capturing three Sun Conference tournament championships and making four NAIA national tournament appearances.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Deep Professional Roots:<\/strong> Beyond the college game, he is widely known in the indoor soccer world, notably spending seven years leading the Florida Tropics locally in the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The STEM Challenge:<\/strong> Roberts has noted that his recruitment strategy is already hitting the ground running for the inaugural season this August, aiming to build a 26-player roster capable of balancing high-level competitive soccer with Florida Poly\u2019s rigorous academic environment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is going to be incredibly interesting to see how quickly he can construct a competitive roster from scratch before the first kickoff in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a massive pickup for Florida Poly\u2019s brand-new athletics department. Bringing in Clay Roberts as the first-ever head coach for the men&#8217;s soccer program gives them an instant foundation&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcL2Rvd25sb2FkLTIud2VicD9maXQ9MzAwJTJDMTY4JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRmxvcmlkYSBQb2x5dGVjaG5pYyBVbml2ZXJzaXR5IGFwcG9pbnRzIENsYXkgUm9iZXJ0cyBhcyBtZW5cdTIwMTlzIHNvY2NlciBjb2FjaCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.ygOnxAvCUc8hzXDRSwBNyCZoqN_CcoTarLMhi83Y3NAMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzA2XC9kb3dubG9hZC0yLndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJGbG9yaWRhIFBvbHl0ZWNobmljIFVuaXZlcnNpdHkgYXBwb2ludHMgQ2xheSBSb2JlcnRzIGFzIG1lblx1MjAxOXMgc29jY2VyIGNvYWNoIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.IWyJj_5ra4_ONLZ5AaZqwdBQXJNopsEt2rvzDPz4SpcMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[14793],"class_list":["post-69529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-florida-polytechnic-university-appoints-clay-roberts-as-mens-soccer-coach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69533,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69529\/revisions\/69533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}