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There is a changing of the guard at Lafayette Christian School. For the first time in 13 years, the Cougars will have a new athletic director and it will be a familiar face as the school promoted Jarred Pike, the assistant athletic director and head football coach, to the head athletic director position starting in the 2025-26 school year.

“I’ve been an assistant AD for a couple of years now, so I just figured eventually, hopefully, that role would open up and I’ll just step in making an easy transition,” he said. 

This has been a long time coming for Pike, who is as engrained into Lafayette Christian’s history as anybody who has been a part of the school. Pike is a graduate of the school, has spent almost every single year of his teaching career there and has coached a wide variety of the Cougars’ athletic teams. He was the natural choice to take over as the athletic director.

“I was already here, I’ve been around athletics here for a long time so it’s kind of like an easy transition for everyone,” he said

Nick Nehring, who served as the athletic director for 13 years, is stepping down to focus on the classroom and his family as his eldest child, Julia, gets ready to head off to Georgia Southern in the fall.

It will be an easy transition from Nehring to Pike as the former will still be around to offer any advice about the role that the latter might need.

“He’s done a great job as athletic director. We have had conversations about where are the pros and where are the cons? What do you like, what d do you not like? You know, just trying to figure all that out, because I don’t know every side of it,” Pike said. “Having him still here at the school is going to be a big help.”

Pike has no plans to step back from coaching any time soon. He plans to maintain his role as the head coach of the high school football team even as he takes on the gargantuan task of running an entire athletic program.

“I have such great coaches around me with the football team that I feel comfortable that I can do both roles,” Pike said. “I’ve called and talked to the coaches, and I was like, ‘hey, look, you know, I might be on a phone for half a practice, or I might be gone occasionally, or whatever can you guys handle that?’ and they all told me it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Pike will not just be leading the high school athletics but will be leading it from K-12. He has no plans to reinvent the wheel but does have some minor plans ahead.

“I’m considering doing some intramural programs for elementary, third through fifth grade that we’ve done in the past. A long time ago, Coach Gomez actually ran it,” Pike said. “We did basketball. And at that time we had five basketball teams, and I think that was great because they got the interest in elementary school and just kind of fed their way up. So we’re thinking about doing a flag football in the fall, and then basketball in the winter, and then soccer as well. And so we got some guys on campus, me being one of them that said they would help lead that.”

“I think this could be a great opportunity to get my feet wet,” he added.

Pike is already helping build the 2025-26 athletic schedules even though he does not officially start until the summer. The grind does not stop for Pike, especially now in his new role.