Alabama high school hires Mississippi coaching legend

One of the premier Class 3A high school football programs in Alabama has found its next head coach.

On Thursday, longtime Mississippi high school coach Chris Chambless was approved and announced as the next leader of the program at Gordo, one of the Yellowhammer State’s winningest programs in the past two decades.

Chambless comes to the state after a brief one-year retirement from West Point (Miss.), where he’d coached for 25 years — including 18 as the head coach.

“It’s not every day that a program like ours, with such a story history, finds a perfect fit for the next chapter, but we feel like with this hire, with coach Chambless, that we have done just that,” Gordo principal Jeff Campbell told the Tuscaloosa News. “We feel like he can come in and bring discipline, toughness and obviously a will to win. … We’ve been at the peak before as a championship program and have no doubt that he’s going to get us back to that point.”

Chambless takes over a strong program at Gordo

During his nearly 20 years at the helm at West Point, Chambless went 206-45 as head coach of the Green Wave, winning seven state titles. That included an 110-11 district record with 11 district titles and a streak of eight consecutive state championship appearances, going 5-3 in state title games during than span.

The Green Wave had 14 seasons of 10-plus wins with Chambless leading them, something that Gordo hopes he can replicate. The Alabama program, also nicknamed the Green Wave, has won 20 region championships and four state titles in its history, with the appearance coming in 2020.

They’re coming off a 10-2 finish in 2024 but were bounced out of the second round of the Class 3A playoffs. Since 2014, Gordo has won eight region championships and has finished with 10 or more wins in each of those years except 2021.

They haven’t, however, been able to grab that elusive state title since 2001.