LEBANON -- Cumberland men’s basketball coach Lonnie Thompson announced this week the hiring of assistant coach Carlton Battle.

Battle fills the position of Brian Collins, who is the now the head coach at Columbia State Community College.

Battle has coached the last four seasons as an assistant at Maplewood High School in Nashville, helping the Panthers reach the semifinals at the TSSAA State Tournament in 2010 and coaching a pair of All-State players. He was responsible for skill development of individual players and scheduling non-district games as well at MHS.

The Nashville native is the founder and program director of the Team Nashville Basketball Club, recruiting student-athletes and coaches from Tennessee and surrounding states and serving as head coach of the 17U AAU Team. His team finished eighth nationally in 2010 at the Division I AAU Nationals.

Battle lettered two years in football and track and field at John Overton High School before graduating from Hillsboro High, also lettering two years in football and track and field. He earned All-Region honors in both sports at both schools.

Battle graduated from Tennessee State University with a bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2002 and received his master’s in Administration and Supervision from TSU in 2007.

He was the head football, boys basketball and track coach at H.G. Hill Middle School as well as boys basketball coach at John Early Middle School and assistant basketball coach at Dupont-Tyler Middle School after completing his undergraduate work. He spent two years as an assistant basketball coach at Hillwood High School before moving to Maplewood.