Old names, new bosses for ACE and Tattnall athletics
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
The end of the week was good for Thomas Darrah and Jordan Brooks.
* Tattnall fills boys basketball job with familiar Macon name; ACE softball and volleyball, Tattnall girls basketball
* Help wanted x 3: Tattnall moving on from Chambless in two roles, and he's moving on from another role
* ACE's McLendon has found a new home, just down I-16 against a region rival, as new softball coach at Dublin
* Help wanted, X 3: McLendon moving on from ACE as athletics director, baseball and softball head coach
The employers of the two announced that each was now an athletics director, Darrah at ACE Charter and Brooks at Tattnall.
Ironically, they both succeed men who combined the AD duties with coaching two sports.
Josh McLendon was ACE’s athletics director while also coaching baseball and softball the last several years. His final official coaching duty at ACE came Wednesday with the Gryphons loss to top-seeded Gordon Lee in the second round of the GHSA Class A/Division I baseball playoffs.
Matt Chambless had three years at Tattnall – after a year at ACE – doing double duty as athletics director and head boys basketball coach, adding the girls basketball job for 2024-25.
McLendon was introduced Monday night as head softball coach and assistant athletics director at Dublin.
Tattnall offered Chambless only one contract, for boys basketball, which he declined. He’s interviewing for jobs.
Friday’s announcement finishes an announcement-heavy week for both schools.
Tattnall released news of Lauren Spillers Hodge on Wednesday as the new girls coach and Christian Palmer on Thursday as the new boys coach.
ACE promoted Andrew Claxton to take over softball, while bumping Lonnie Wheeler up to the volleyball job. ACE is still searching for a baseball coach.
Darrah is completing his fifth year of teaching and coaching after dabbling in the non-academic world out of college.
He shared interim head football coaching duties with then-assistant Sam Zanders – now at Warner Robins – in 2021 when Jason Stephens was dismissed after the season opener that year.
Darrah was promoted in 2022 to take over the boys basketball program from, ironically, Chambless.
He graduated from Newnan as an all-state quarterback and head to Alabama, transferring to Jacksonville State, where he played football and baseball.
The promotion of Brooks became official Friday. He’s a Maconite through and through, having spent most of his life on Trojan Trail off of Wesleyan Drive.
He graduated from Tattnall, having started there in kindergarten. The 2009 All-Middle Georgia GISA player of the year in the Macon Telegraph was on college rosters at Columbus State and Georgia College as a pitcher.
When Joey Hiller was forced out as athletics director and head baseball coach at Tattnall in the spring of 2022, Brooks was immediately named as the next head coach, Hiller having named him as associate head coach before the 2021 season.