After four successful seasons at Chapel Hill, head football coach Chris Parker has decided to head north and take the head coaching position at Pickens High School in Jasper, Ga.

“It wasn’t something I’d say I was looking to do, but the opportunity came up and it is what is best for my family at this point,” said Parker, who spent four years as the Panther’s head man. “As a coach you’re going to have a lot of jobs and I think you always hope that on your last day you’re leaving the place better than you found it. I feel like we did that here and I am very proud of that.”

Parker took over a Chapel Hill program in 2008 that had rarely seen success. In their first eight seasons the Panthers went a combined 15-65, including an 0-10 season before he arrived in 2007.

In Parker’s first year he transformed Chapel Hill not only into a contender, but a state playoff team and the premier program in Douglas County. That season the Panthers went 9-3 and claimed the only playoff victory in school history – a 23-12 victory over Windsor Forest.

Parker took Chapel Hill back to the post season in 2009, going 7-4, and won a 5AAAA-South sub-region championship in 2011, going 6-4, but falling just short of the state playoffs in a double overtime loss to Sprayberry in a region play-in game.

Chapel Hill also went 7-1 against county competition during his tenure.

“I didn’t know we would be that good right out of the gate but I was fortunate to have some good players, great administrative support, and we had the ball bounce our way a few times,” said Parker of his time at Chapel Hill.

“The hardest part will be leaving these players because if it were just about me and them I’d never leave. But Chapel Hill has a great principal and athletic director that I know will bring in a good man to lead Chapel Hill to even bigger and better things.”

The move is the second coaching change in the county this off-season, following Douglas County coach John Oglesby’s resignation in November, and leaves Alexander coach Matt Combs, who started in 2010, as the longest tenured head coach in the county.