Chambers High School stays in the family to hire new athletic director
Chambers High School didn’t look far -- or wait too long -- to name its new athletic director.
Just days after longtime AD Carlos Richardson left to take a job in South Carolina, the Cougars have named Montis Lash as his replacement. Lash, 38, is currently an associate head coach and co-offensive coordinator for the Chambers’ football team, which is trying to win its third straight state championship.
Due to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools rules, Lash will have to step down as coach to become AD. Lash said giving up coaching was tough to do.
“I’m a coach at heart,” Lash said, “but I feel like my impact can be greater on the school and in the community from an athletic director’s standpoint. But it’s bittersweet, with how things are going the last couple years and for the foreseeable future. But I’ll still have a connection to the program.”
Lash, 38, has been at Chambers for three years, where he has been the strength and conditioning coach. Prior that, he was offensive coordinator at Providence High for one year and for three at Mountain Island Charter.
Lash, a four-year varsity football player at Greensboro’s Smith High, played football and ran track at Virginia Tech from 2001-05. He later earned his undergraduate in business from Radford and said he holds two master’s degrees -- in sports management from California-Berkeley and in education from Grand Canyon.
In his new role, Lash takes over a program that has a 100 percent graduation rate for student-athletes in the past 11 years, and one that has won five state championships in multiple sports over the past 10.
“Obviously,” Lash said, “Carlos has built something really special here, with the success we’ve had across multiple sports and multiple state championships. My goal isn’t to come in and reboot or rebuild something, but to pick up where he left off and put my own fingerprint on it. And one of the things I’m looking forward to most is expanding our social media footprint that we started with football across all sports.”
Richardson, who was a finalist for the N.C. High School Athletic Association AD of the year in 2020, was athletic director at Chambers for 11 years.
Richardson’s last day at Chambers is Oct. 28. He’ll start at South Pointe the next day, and he thinks Lash is a great choice to replace him in Charlotte.
“I’ve worked with him closely the last three years,” Richardson said, “and he knows the ins and outs of this place and he’ll keep us rolling in the right direction.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 11:29 AM.
