Myers Park High School gets another new head football coach, its fifth in five seasons
When he was hired about nine months ago, Jason McManus said he wanted to be Myers Park’s football coach for the rest of his career.
After one season, however, McManus is out.
McManus will not return as football coach this fall, and Myers Park — a national power just two years ago — has hired its fifth football coach in five seasons.
Mustangs principal Robert Folk said that assistant coach Chris James has been promoted to head football coach. Folk said McManus was leaving the school to pursue “other coaching and career opportunities.”
Contacted by The Observer, McManus said he did not want to comment at this time.
“Coach McManus provided leadership and accountability during a transitional period, and we appreciate his commitment,” Folk said. “We are pleased to have coach James step into this role. He is an experienced coach, has strong connections within the Myers Park community and is a natural leader at the school and on the field.”
James is a Dean of Students at Myers Park and has been an assistant coach there since 2021. He was the team’s defensive coordinator last season and has previously worked as an assistant coach at Charlotte Latin, Porter Ridge and Independence High Schools.
Myers Park was 3-7 under McManus and did not make the postseason in 2022.
McManus was hired last April to replace former NFL assistant and player Curtis Fuller, who coached the Mustangs for one season. Fuller left to become an assistant coach at Texas A&M-Commerce.
Prior to Fuller, Myers Park was coached by Mark Harman in the 2021 spring season and by Scott Chadwick before that.
Despite having new coaches repeatedly, the Mustangs were able to keep winning until the 2022 season. Before that, the Mustangs had grabbed at least a share of conference titles under each of the previous four coaches, including a run to the N.C. regional championship game under Harman in the spring of 2021. Chadwick also led Myers Park to the regional round in 2018.
Fuller’s team was 8-4 in the fall 2021 season and reached the second round of the playoffs before the N.C. High School Athletic Association ruled that the Mustangs had to forfeit all of their games for using at least three ineligible players on a roster that included players from California, Georgia and Texas.
Those athletes had moved to Charlotte and lived in three houses rented by the parents of the Myers Park quarterback, who was from California. NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker said some of the ineligible players were from out of state and some from the immediate area.
Myers Park principal Robert Folk self-reported the eligibility issues to the NCHSAA and said that with the McManus hire, it was time for the Mustangs to move forward.
Folk told The Observer last year that he had picked McManus from a group of four finalists and was impressed with the coach’s resume, which included 14 years as a college assistant and five at Rock Hill’s South Pointe High, where McManus helped turn the Stallions into a national power. During his time in Rock Hill, South Pointe won four consecutive state championships. The team also finished atop The Charlotte Observer’s Sweet 16 poll in 2017, when the Stallions finished nationally ranked.
This story was originally published February 6, 2023 at 3:34 PM.
