Assistant coach Kelly Myers has been named interim head coach to finish out the season.

Per the Kentucky New Era, Ethan Atchley resigned on Monday without warning or a stated reason. He was hired in January 2024 as head coach of the Christian County football team. The Colonels were 1-10 last year under Coach Atchley, and have started off the 2025 season with a 0-4 record. Atchley was first promoted head coach at Lexington Christian Academy in 2014 where he coached for 5 seasons before moving on to Bullitt East. He spent three seasons as head coach of the Chargers until he was let go following the 2021 season, and after initially being named head coach at Lafayette in January 2022 he was released from the job the following month and eventually landed at Frankfort about a month later. Atchley and Frankfort parted ways after one season and he spent the next year employed by a company that specialized in helping athletes ink NIL deals before being hired at Christian County.

With consolidation looming for Christian County, the football program (among other programs at CC) seems like it's just completely falling by the wayside and being left to disintegrate.

Makes me really sad for the kids.

I caught wind of this yesterday morning & the KHSAA website already had his name removed as the Christian County coach by yesterday evening.  I’ve been told 2nd hand what it’s for and if true, I’m not shocked.

The ramifications of delayed consolidation just keep stacking up.

Christian County was #1 in 5A going into the 2017 playoffs and undefeated and had a very good team.  They ended that year 11 and 1.  Since that 2017 season or from the 2018 season to now they are 11 and 61.  Just an incredible fall.  I get no joy in typing that.  And they are very likely to get a trip to South Warren the first round of the playoffs this year.  Wow!

He got hired at Lafayette, and there was some undisclosed issue with his background check coming from B. East, and he never coaches a down for the Generals. Then, Frankfort hires him and let him go after one season... sounds shady!

Gosh that is a lot of moving around/parting ways for one coach.  I don't know Coach Atchley but there is no way I would hire him.

Is he still teaching?

48 minutes ago, theguru said:

Gosh that is a lot of moving around/parting ways for one coach.  I don't know Coach Atchley but there is no way I would hire him.

Is he still teaching?

My first thought was how do you hire someone after looking at that resume.

Just now, BigBlue92 said:

My first thought was how do you hire someone after looking at that resume.

I agree.  I would ask him about each instance and then do a detailed background investigation on each instance. And then I would probably look in the mirror and ask myself what the heck am I doing...

Out in the real world an person doing the interview would certainly ask why an individual moved around so much in a relatively short amount of time.

It is apparent that Atchley came with some baggage into this job... but Christian Co. knew that. 

It is also apparent that Christian Co. HS football came with some baggage into this hire... but Atchley knew that. 

It seems that oil and water got together for a football season and were somehow surprised that they didn't mix well. 

That said, the toxicity of Christian Co. Schools, in particular surrounding this six-year merger, on social media and in general conversations, may be as bad as any of us has ever seen for any district in KY. At this point, they want to consider renaming (again) the new HS "Chernobyl".