First as an assistant then as a head coach, Brian Slay has been impactful in helping high-school football teams throughout Northern Virginia improve and enjoy success in recent seasons.
He hopes to continue that trend as the new head coach of the Wakefield Warriors football squad in Arlington.
Slay was recently announced as the team’s new leader. He succeeds Clarence Martin, who stepped down following the 2025 campaign after three seasons.
“I am glad to be part of the Arlington community, and the challenge to be Wakefield’s coach really excites me,” Slay told ARLnow.
The new coach said his move to Arlington is a bit like a return home. His late grandmother, Carolyn Slay, worked as a teacher and administrator at Oakridge Elementary School in Arlington for 30 years.
“This all makes me feel more connected to the community,” Slay said.
Slay also has a connection with Brian Parke, Wakefield’s director of student activities. Parke and Slay worked together at another Northern Virginia school in previous years.
During that time, Parke said he became impressed with Slay’s leadership qualities and football knowledge.
Most recently, Slay, 34, was the head coach of the Oakton Cougars for two years. He took over an Oakton team that had won little in previous years, going 1-9 in 2023. Slay made the Cougars much more competitive, finishing 4-6 in each of his seasons.
Prior to that, Slay was the McLean Highlanders’ defensive coordinator one season and an offensive line coach in the other.
McLean head coach Joe Cockerham said Slay was a big reason the Highlanders enjoyed their most successful season in years back in 2023, finishing with 8-3 and earning the fourth seed in the 6D North Region tournament playoffs.
During that season, McLean had one shutout and held four other opponents to nine points or fewer.
“Brian is always so well-prepared with anything he does. The players love him because he can relate well and connect with them,” Cockerham said back then.
Slay inherits a Wakefield program that showed progress under Martin the past two seasons, after consecutive 0-10 campaigns in 2022 and 2023. Wakefield finished 3-7 this past season, after enjoying a 3-1 start.
The new coach said one of his main objectives is to “fix up,” develop and improve the play of both the offensive and defensive lines.
“We want to run the football and be strong up front on both lines,” Slay said.
As for the team’s attitude, Slay wants to build a strong culture emphasizing accountability and values.
Slay held his first football interest meeting at Wakefield with players and others on March 10. He told ARLnow he will spend a lot of his first month observing the Wakefield players and the situation, then make specific decisions going forward.
Slay is currently a teacher at Oakton and hopes to join the faculty at Wakefield in the next few months.
Prior to coaching at McLean, Slay held assistant positions at Flint Hill School; for Class 5 perennial public-school power Stone Bridge of Ashburn, where he graduated in 2009; at John Champe High in Loudoun County; and for a high-school team in North Carolina.
Slay was on the Stone Bridge staff in 2017 when that team won a state championship.
In college, Slay was a defensive lineman for four seasons at North Carolina State University.
NOTE: An interesting similarity with Slay taking over at Wakefield: he inherits a program that has not won a district game in multiple seasons (four). That was the same case at Oakton, when the Cougars had gone six years without a league victory. That streak ended during Slay’s first season in charge.
