MURFREESBORO, Tenn – The Middle Tennessee Christian School Cougars announced last Tuesday, April 22, that Chris Lawson, who led Cascade to two District Championships, three Region Semifinals, and two state-sectional appearances in his five seasons at the helm, had been hired as the new Head Basketball Coach for the 2025-26 school year.
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MURFREESBORO, Tenn – The Middle Tennessee Christian School Cougars announced last Tuesday, April 22, that Chris Lawson, who led Cascade to two District Championships, three Region Semifinals, and two state-sectional appearances in his five seasons at the helm, had been hired as the new Boy's Head Basketball Coach for the 2025-26 school year.
Lawson, coming off of a 16-13 season with the Champions that ended in the Region 4-AA Quarterfinals at Mt. Pleasant, finishes his five-year tenure in Bell Buckle with a record of 93-57 (29-9) from 2020-2024/25.
“The five years here at Cascade have been extremely special for me and my family,” Lawson told the Times-Gazette. “At different points in our life, we face decisions, and sometimes you have to make that change for you and your family. There are a lot of good people at Cascade, and we made relationships and memories that we’ll hold onto forever. There’s also a lot of good people at MTCS, and those people have welcomed us with open arms and I look forward to that next phase with what all that holds.”
Lawson was hired at Cascade following the Champs’ 2019/20 campaign that saw the program finish a disappointing 9-21 (5-5) with a 29-point loss at LEAD Academy in the Region 4-A Quarterfinal.
In his time in Bell Buckle, Cascade saw a six-win improvement in Year 1, ending with a 64-63 loss in the state-sectional round at the eventual Class A State Champions, Clay County.
In Year Two, Cascade saw another eight-win jump, winning the District 7-AA title with a 31-point win at Community. Cascade finished 23-8 with its season coming to an early close in the Region 4-AA Semifinal against Peal Cohn, 72-59.
The following season, Lawson led the Champions to their best season in more than a decade with an impressive 27-7 record, winning their second-consecutive District 7-AA Championship with a 79-61 win over Grundy County. After falling to Pearl Cohn in the Region Title Game, Cascade saw its season come to a close one game away from the State Tournament for the second time in three years with a 57-38 loss at York Institute that marked the end of the stellar careers of the star backcourt of Jackson Davis and 1,500+ career-point scorer in Lucas Clanton.
Somewhat expectedly, Cascade took a step back in Year Four under Lawson, finishing with a 12-17 record and losing at Loretto in the Region 5-AA Quarterfinal.
Last season, in Lawson’s fifth and final year manning the sidelines for the Champions, Cascade finished 16-13, falling at Mt. Pleasant in the Region 5-AA Quarterfinal.
Perhaps more so than the success on the hardwood came the success in the tight-knit Cascade community. Lawson and his family moved from Alabama when he accepted the job before the 2020/21 season, and he glowingly expressed his gratitude and appreciation for everyone involved while maintaining his stance that he’s not just leaving that same community in the dust.
“Me and my family are extremely thankful for the past five years in Bedford County and at Cascade,” Lawson reiterated, “There’s been countless relationships built between us and people in the community. People welcomed us into their homes from the very first day. I can’t express how great that’s been, how much that has meant to us. Obviously we’ll still be around in the same areas so we plan on coming back and supporting these guys; I don’t necessarily think that we’ll just leave and be gone forever. Just extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to be a part of this for the last five years.”
Lawson is excited for the fresh chance to build from the ground up, and he feels like the timing for this move is just right moving forward.
“Timing is very important,” he explained. “The thing that intrigues me the most is that I feel like those kids and those families and the school and just the community in general are hungry for some change. They want somebody that’s going to come in and really pour into the basketball program and give it an identity and an opportunity to grow and get better. I think it’s a good time to go in because they’ve been down for a little bit and they don’t have anywhere to go but up. I feel like we can go up from where they’re sitting at right now and I feel like – similar to here at Cascade – their middle school program the last four years is like 54-4. They started two eighth graders last year on varsity and they have good, young players. I’ve been through that before where if you have good, young players, they are hungry to be taught and coached and get better and better. We just want to see progress. We’ll make sure that process is right, and we just want to see the program moving in the right direction.”
Lawson now moves to MTCS – a school who has seen back-to-back two-win seasons – and a program that is hungry to gain relevance for the first time since moving into DII District 3-A, something Lawson sees as an opportunity moving forward. Last season, Providence Christian, a member of that district, won the State Championship, 78-68, over fellow district member Battle Ground Academy.
“With MTCS being a private school, I think that’s probably the best district top to bottom in any level across the state, public or private – it’s probably the toughest from a competitive standpoint and with what you have to go through night-in and night-out,” he concluded.
“That means we have a long way to go, but we’re going to roll our sleeves up and get to work and see where we can land.”
Cascade now enters into a coach-searching phase for the next Boy’s Head Basketball Coach that will be headed up by the Athletic Director, Andy Giel.
