Former West (Tenn.) HC Lamar Brown joins Maryville staff

Former West High School head football coach Lamar Brown wasn’t out of the coaching ranks for too long.

According to a 5StarPreps report on Thursday morning, Brown has joined Maryville High School’s coaching staff for the 2025 season. Brown was relieved of his head coaching duties with the West Rebels after leading the team to state championships in 2022 and 2023.

Brown had led one of the state’s top football programs, with West finishing No. 20 in the final Tennessee 2024 High School Football Composite Rankings.

“We are very excited to have a championship caliber coach join our staff,” Maryville head football coach Derek Hunt said via a 6 News report. “We have been friends for a while now and he is an outstanding football coach, and an even better person.”

The Red Rebels came close last season to reaching Tennessee’s TSSAA Class 6A, Division I state championship, falling in the state semifinals to Oakland. Now with Brown on the staff, the championship expectations needle moves a little bit more heading into the fall.

At the heart of Brown’s removal as West’s head coach is two former Rebels’ football staff members identified as Chad Antwan Brooks and Richard Scott Shaver, have been brought up on charges of sexual battery as an authority figure and aggravated statutory rape, per a Knoxville News Sentinel report. At West, Brooks was a nonfaculty football coach and Shaver was a teacher/coach.

Knox County superintendent Dr. Jon Rysewyk back in June had addressed the findings of the inquiry, which the focus was primarily on Brown’s coaching staff hires. What Rysewyk’s investigative team uncovered was what they had deemed as a ‘significant lack of oversight’ of the Rebels football team, pointing directly at Brown’s hiring of football staff members.

According to a WBIR 10 News report, Jeff Trainer, the parent of a West student who doesn’t play on the football team, speaking highly on the behalf of Brown and his culture in developing players.

“Have you made any attempt to understand the good that Coach Brown does and weigh that against whatever unspoken thing he allegedly did,” Trainer said to Knox County Board of Education members. “Obviously, whatever you are accusing him of is not major — or you wouldn’t leave him as a teacher in Knox County.”

Brown, a 1987 Jefferson County graduate, had been lead man of the Rebels since 2017, before his ouster officially ended his eight-year tenure. One of the aforementioned assistants in question according to Brown had been with the school since the early 2000’s, long before he had ever arrived from Morristown West.

About Maryville

Maryville, ranked No. 7 in the Massey Ratings’ Tennessee Top 25 preseason rankings, is coming off a deep run through the TSSAA Class 6A, Division I playoffs and are slated to be one of the top football teams in Class 6A, Division I this fall. The Red Rebels are projected to return a host of starters, including 2026 3-star offensive tackle Brody Smith and running back Price Davis, who is committed to Air Force.