A new era of Gray Collegiate athletics began Tuesday as the school introduced its new athletic director and head football coach.  

Gray soccer coach Kevin Heise will become the school’s second athletic director since it opened doors in 2014. Silver Bluff’s De’Angelo Bryant was named the school's second football coach and an assistant athletic director.  

Heise and Bryant will be responsible for helping Gray prepare for its transition from 2A competition to 4A competition, following recent realignment changes made by the South Carolina High School League to address competitive balance. 

“We reviewed over 76  resumes, spent two full days interviewing candidates, many nights, many weekends, holidays were spent trying to make sure we located the best fit for our school in both positions, and I tell you what, we hit a home run for both,” Gray Collegiate principal Brian Newsome said at the press conferences introducing Heise and Bryant in their new roles. “We understood the importance of our school culture and our climate, and we also wanted to make sure our students are positively impacted every single day.” 

The new appointees replace Adam Holmes who held both positions for the past nine years. Holmes’ departure came as a surprise to those at Gray, and the school quickly established a hiring committee to search for his replacement.  

“I called these committee members and I said, ‘I want you guys to help me fill a vacancy that I didn’t know we were going to have, but now we've gotta take a challenge on right now,’ and they've done that,” Newsome said.  

For the athletic director position, the committee decided to look internally and landed on Heise. He has been Gray’s boys soccer and cross-country coach for seven years and brings 35 total years of high school coaching experience. From 1991 to 2016, Heise was the head coach at his nearby alma mater, Brookland-Cayce.  

“As we embark on our new journey in class 4A starting in the fall, we welcome the challenges that lie ahead, and we will strive to maintain excellence for our student-athletes, both in the classroom and in the athletic arraignments,” Heise said. “I look forward to working with coach De’Angelo Bryant and wish you a heartfelt welcome to you and your family.” 

Heise has years of administrative work experience on top of his coaching experience. He is heavily involved with youth soccer and the soccer coaches’ association in the state.  

This opportunity allowed him to fulfill a professional goal he set as he progressed through his career.  

“I would be lying if I didn’t say it was a lifelong goal to be an athletic director,” Heise said. “It's been something that I've matriculated to. I like the responsibility. I don't mind making decisions.” 

Heise will maintain his soccer coaching duties for now but said he plans to rely on his staff more. Fortunately, many of his assistants have served on his staff for years.  

On the administration side of things, Heise already has ideas he’d like to start implementing, including a senior mentorship program.  

“I would like to do something to connect, where it's not just baseball, softball, soccer, cross country football, basketball, and it's a division,” Heise said. “I'd like to do some intermingling between the groups.” 

Heise also said he plans to find ways to honor Gray’s “incredible number” of multi-sport athletes.  

“I think we need to recognize that on a different level too, and celebrate those kids because we got three-sport athletes, which is becoming more and more rare every day, every year, in this modern era,” Heise said.  

Bryant joins the Gray Collegiate family after serving as the head coach of his alma mater Silver Bluff. Bryant experienced much success at his former school, including a trip to the 2021 state title where they fell to none other than Gray Collegiate.  

“Coach Bryant got Silver Bluff to the 2A state championship game. He just faced a very tough team, the War Eagles, so he could not get that state championship, and we're still very happy about that coach Bryant,” Newsome joked.  

Before working at Silver Bluff, Bryant was a football player at his alma mater, winning a state title in 2000, and Wake Forest where he earned a degree in sociology. He also spent eight years as an assistant at White Knoll High School in Lexington County.  

At Silver Bluff, his team went 38-24 through six seasons. He was named Region Coach of the Year, Lower State Coach of the Year and Region Athletic Director of the Year during that stretch. He also had success getting kids to the next level, sending 33 Silver Bluff athletes to college for sports.  

Bryant expressed his excitement to take on the job and thanked his family and the people at Gray Collegiate for believing he has what it takes to succeed. He broke down some of the core principles and traits he wants to see in players.  

“I want difference-makers. I want young men who are going to be disciplined. I want to have integrity in the program,” Bryant said. “We want to have fun. We want to be tough, so those would be some words that they'll hear consistently … We have to be that 1% versus the 99%.” 

Bryant said he hopes to join Gray full-time either in March or April so he can get started on preparing for the upcoming season. The team held a meeting after the press conference so the players could meet their new coach for the first time.  

With the jump to 4A set to begin during the fall season, Bryant is looking forward to the challenge of playing against tougher competition. He said the controversy he has no feelings about the competitive balance controversy the school faced the past year, adding it is all about the kids.  

Bryant hopes Gray’s new region foes will be excited to play the school and sees potential for a few new rivalries to blossom between some of the other local schools.  

“Now you get a chance to play against your cross-town rivals,” Bryant said. “That’s something that I know that these kids have a lot of pride in. So we are definitely really excited about that opportunity and being able to travel up and down I-20 a little bit.”