Eaves tabbed to head LFO athletic department
A former LFO Warrior player has been promoted from assistant coach to athletic director.
After accepting the position in late April, former assistant football and baseball coach, Chris Eaves, is ready to make the transition to LFO’s newest A.D. beginning with the 2017-18 school year and for many years beyond.
The change in positions came about as former A.D. Brad Langford will now be an assistant principal at LFO, a change that Eaves says will be beneficial for the maturation of himself as an athletic director.
“That’s been great because (Langford) is still in the building,” Eaves said. “That way I can learn from him and ask him questions. And we have a lot of seasoned coaches around here, so that makes it a little easier for me.”
Eaves will oversee the school’s athletic department, which includes ensuring each LFO team is in Georgia High School Association (GHSA\) compliance, implementing tools needed for each and every team to be successful and building relationships with the community.
Right from the jump, Eaves said he plans on fortifying some of the philosophies and goals Langford valued. The number one priority, he said, is to exhort how important education is to each and every one of the athletes.
As a former math teacher, Eaves said he knows how pertinent it is to teach students and athletes on how to troubleshoot and persevere through disparate situations. He explained that it is a characteristic students need to cultivate and transition to the playing field or court.
He added that communication is another aspect taught in the classroom that makes its way to competition.
“You are teaching them to communicate,” he said. “The same thing you are teaching them in the classroom is the same thing you are teaching them on the field. You are just using a different tool to do it. We have to engage the student — students learn in different ways. One of the beliefs we have at LFO is that it is a shared reasonability — it comes from the student, the family, the coaches, faculty, staff and the community. It’s a shared responsibility, and that’s where I think athletics come in.”
Eaves added he will do everything he can to assure lessons learned in the classroom initiate a changeover to games, matches, sets and rounds.
Assisting in bolstering these characteristics — a job that officially starts July 1 — will be an academic liaison program for the softball team. Other tasks Eaves said he will work on in his first year are building relationships with alumni, schools, sponsorships, community partners and city officials, as well as current faculty and staff.
“Know who you are and build relationships, because those relationships are what will serve as a foundation for any growth we will have in the future,” he said.
A 1991 graduate of LFO, Eaves went on to join the Army, where he worked in missile defense. He graduated from the United States Military Academy with a degree in engineering.
After leaving the Army as a Captain in 2000, he worked in marketing development for 13 years at Bank of America in Chattanooga before becoming a teacher and an assistant coach at LFO.