Myers Park state championship basketball coach leaves to start new program in Lake Norman

Myers Park High School boys’ basketball coach Scott Taylor has accepted a job at new school opening in the Lake Norman area this fall.

Taylor, 42, will be head coach at Ambassador Christian School, which plans to field 18 sports teams in the 2024-25 school year. The private school has applied to play in the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association with teams like Charlotte Latin, Charlotte Christian and Providence Day.

The school will open with grades 9-11, Taylor said.

“It’s a unique opportunity and I don’t know how many chances you get to have something presented to you like this,” Taylor said. “I just finished my 11th year in public school and to have a chance to start something new and build it from the ground up is interesting.”

Joining Taylor at Ambassador Christian will be his longtime assistant coach Nick Jones.

“We’re comfortable with each other and we both look forward to taking on this new challenge,” Taylor said.

Taylor just completed his eighth season at Myers Park, which he led to the school’s first NCHSAA 4A state championship in boys’ basketball in the 2022-23 season.

This season, Myers Park was ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation before the Mustangs were upset by North Mecklenburg in the N.C. 4A quarterfinals at home Friday.

Next season, Myers Park will lose point guard Bishop Boswell (Tennessee) and forward Sir Mohammed (Notre Dame) to graduation. Both were top 100 players.

Myers Park center Sadiq White is a top 30 player in the junior class.

In the past two seasons, with those three among the core of the team, Myers Park was 55-7. Overall at Myers Park, Taylor was 145-62.

“We couldn’t be more excited to announce Scott Taylor as our head men’s basketball coach,” Ambassador athletic director Jay Poag said in a news release. “Coach Taylor is considered one of the top basketball coaches in the entire Southeast and is coming off of a phenomenal eight year stretch at Myers Park, the state’s largest public school.

“His teams have been consistently good at the national level. It was so obvious through this process that coach Taylor was the right person to lead our basketball program. His experience and successes are certainly easy to see, but it is his relational approach to his players and his love for the Lord that make him the perfect fit for Ambassador.”

Taylor said he will leave Myers Park with lots of fond memories.

“My family grew up there,” he said. “My little boy turns 9 this week and he spent so much time in that gym. My little girl is 7 and she was born the last day of school my second year there. They’ve grown up at Myers Park and the community has been special to us, and on the basketball side, I think we’ll look back — and right now it may be difficult — but we’ll look back in years to come and be appreciative for the kids we were able to coach and how competitive we were able to be.

“We were really lucky.”