Independence High football coach DJ McFadden is heading to West Charlotte

Independence High’s DJ McFadden will be the next head football coach at West Charlotte.

McFadden, 36, has coached at Independence for five years, beginning in the 2021 season. He has produced five straight winning seasons, including four straight years with double-digit wins.

McFadden will start working at West Charlotte full-time on Feb. 9, he said. Independence athletic Elijah Ashley said the school had already advertised the opening for the Patriots’ now vacant position and hoped to have a replacement for McFadden with three weeks.

McFadden said he would be on both campuses over the next three weeks as he helps his current team seniors with National Signing Day next month, but he’s ready to turn the page.

“I’m very excited for this opportunity,” McFadden said. “I’m an Independence grad and I love Independence, but if I’m going to leave Independence, it’s for a place as special as West Charlotte, not just for football but just for what West Charlotte is to the city of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina. It’s a unique opportunity for me to impact another community and I took it.

“I gave Independence 10 years — four years as a player and six as a coach — and for me personally, I think it was time for a change.”

McFadden’s mission at West Charlotte, a bona fide state power, will be different than when he started at Independence.

Before he arrived, the Patriots were struggling, and had no winning seasons from 2016-20, including three years with just two wins each.

Independence, which won seven straight state titles from 2000-06, also went through four different head coaches in the six years before McFadden arrived back on campus.

McFadden was a quarterback on two Patriots’ state championship teams when he was in high school.

A rebuilt West Charlotte football program

At West Charlotte, McFadden will replace Sam Greiner, who was dismissed late last year. Greiner rebuilt West Charlotte’s program, leading the Lions to the 2024 N.C. 3A state championship and to the 2025 N.C. 8A Western Regional championship game, or state semifinal.

The 2024 state championship was West Charlotte’s first in football since 1995 and the second NCHSAA title in school history.

Greiner, who won a 2017 state title at Harding, coached at West Charlotte since the 2020 season and rebuilt a once-proud program.

Once one of the most feared teams in state — particularly throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s when it made five state title appearances — West Charlotte found hard times after reaching another state final in 2006 under Pete Gilchrist.

From 2007-19, the year before Greiner took over, West Charlotte had three winless seasons and just two winning seasons. The Lions also shuffled through eight different coaches.

Greiner produced four straight winning seasons and four deep playoff runs. His 2025 team, which was nationally-ranked for most of the season, finished 10-3. The Lions, one of the youngest teams in North Carolina, also had an unbeaten junior varsity.

What’s going to change?

McFadden is known as one of best offensive minds in North Carolina and he inherits a rising senior QB, Jamouri Nichols, who was a semifinalist for the N.C. Mr. Football award last season, annually given to the state’s best player.

But McFadden isn’t sure how much he’ll change with the Lions.

“We’ve got to get in there and meet with the staff and the players,” he said. “I know what I bring. I know I’m not going to go in there and act like it’s a rebuild. It’s not. Sam (Greiner) did a great job. It’s about identifying areas where we’ve got to clean up and make sure we’re living right off the field so we can have success on the field.”

In high school, McFadden followed two of the best players in Mecklenburg County history — Independence quarterbacks Chris Leak and Joe Cox — and was charged with keeping the Patriots’ long win strea and state championship run alive.

He was unbeaten in two seasons and won two state titles.

He views this new job in a similar way, taking over a national program from Greiner.

“No matter where I am,” McFadden said, “winning the state title is the goal for me. That’s the expectation. No matter if I’m at Independence or West Charlotte, that’s what we strive for. But I want us to focus more on the process of what it takes to get there. But for me, I put more pressure on myself to get the job done than anyone else, and I’m ready to go.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2026 at 1:02 PM.