Former Mary G. Montgomery football coach Zach Golson has filed a lawsuit against the Alabama High School Athletic Association and four individuals, seeking due process in the case that cost him his job and left the school’s football program on probation.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, where Golson is asking a judge to intervene in the AHSAA case that ended with him suspended from coaching for one year and the Vikings’ program placed on restrictive probation. Golson was later dismissed as the school’s head coach and replaced by Alex Page, the team’s defensive coordinator during the previous four seasons under Golson.
The lawsuit is the latest step in a case that has generated headlines since May, when allegations of recruiting violations by the football program first became public.
Who is named and what the suit asks for
The four individuals named in the suit are AHSAA executive director Heath Harmon, AHSAA investigator Chuck Anderson, Mobile County Public School System Superintendent Chresal Threadgill and MGM principal David Diaz.
The suit seeks a permanent injunction regarding Golson’s one-year suspension — or an injunction that directs the AHSAA and Harmon to provide due process and give Golson written notice of any allegations against him. He is also asking for a permanent injunction that directs Threadgill and Diaz to rescind his removal as head football coach, or to provide due process, and he is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Golson, who declined to comment Monday when reached by phone, said all statements about the litigation must come through his attorney, Thomas M. Loper. A message left with Loper’s office was not immediately returned. A text message seeking comment from Harmon also was not immediately returned.
The questions Golson wants answered
Beyond the injunctions and damages, the suit poses a series of pointed questions: Was the investigation completed? Why was Golson removed as head coach without Threadgill or Diaz investigating the charges themselves? What evidence was found, and did persons associated with rival schools spearhead the call for an investigation? Was the investigation impartial?
The suit suggests one of Golson’s central objectives is the opportunity to clear his name, claiming he has been denied due process. The AHSAA has not publicly released its report on the MGM case.
Court filings made public in the case describe a more detailed set of allegations: Golson contends he was interviewed a single time by Anderson for less than an hour, that he was never given written notice of the allegations or the evidence behind them, and that he was told he had no standing to appeal his coaching suspension because only a member school can appeal. The filings also claim Anderson made comments before the investigation concluded indicating the association was “coming after” the MGM program, and that a principal at a rival school initiated the complaint.
How the case unfolded
The trouble began in May, when the AHSAA announced recruiting violations against MGM stemming from an eighth-grade signing day ceremony at the school involving students planning to attend MGM. Some of the students who attended the ceremony lived in school districts other than MGM’s. Through the lawsuit, Golson says the ceremony was staged to recognize students who had already decided to attend MGM, and that no invitations or requests were made to the students or their parents or guardians to attend.
When the AHSAA announced its restrictive probation against MGM — which included Golson’s one-year suspension from coaching at any AHSAA-member school, a postseason ban for the football team this season and a fine — Golson was placed on administrative leave. Soon afterward, Page was named interim head coach, and just a few days later he was named permanent head coach, replacing Golson.
The school appealed the postseason ban twice. It first appealed to the District 1 board of the AHSAA, which includes MGM, but the sanctions were upheld. Diaz then announced the school would “move on” and not seek another appeal, which it could have pursued before the AHSAA’s Central Board of Control. That changed when Pell City — sanctioned with a similar restrictive probation that included a coaching suspension and postseason ban — appealed and won its team’s eligibility for the postseason. MGM followed with its own appeal to the Central Board of Control, but that appeal was also denied, ending any postseason hopes for this year’s team. Games against region opponents will not count in the region record of the region opponents.
The school system’s moves
Threadgill, with Diaz’s support, decided to transfer Golson from MGM to Orchard Elementary School, where he would continue teaching in the system. Golson appealed the transfer, seeking to remain at MGM, but lost in a narrow vote of the county school board. At the request of one board member that he be moved to a school with high school students, he was transferred to Pathway 612 School in Mobile.
On Friday, Golson filed the lawsuit against the AHSAA and the four individuals in Montgomery County Circuit Court, seeking among other things a declaratory judgment that his rights were violated and an immediate injunction that would allow him to coach while the case proceeds. Court filings also allege that Threadgill and Diaz relied on unproven allegations and made defamatory statements about him without conducting their own investigation — claims the school system officials have not publicly answered.
The season continues without him
On the field, MGM has opened the season 0-2 under Page, with losses to Saraland, ranked No. 2 in the Alabama Sports Writers Association Class 5A poll, and Vigor, the No. 2-ranked team in ASWA’s Class 4A poll.
The program Golson left behind was in far different shape from the one he inherited. He took over an MGM team coming off a 0-10 season. In four years under Golson, the Vikings went 37-10, reached the playoffs all four seasons and advanced to the state semifinals in 2023.
None of the defendants named in the suit has filed a formal response yet, and the case will now wind through the Montgomery County court system. Golson hopes, at minimum, to force the association to show its work: the evidence it gathered, the process it followed, and the reasoning behind a suspension that ended a coaching tenure that had turned MGM into a consistent winner.