‘For a man who once reached a Super Bowl as a Pro Bowl receiver, the coaching sidelines have been far less kind. Now, after being fired from his college post, Terance Mathis is looking for a fresh start back where it all begins: high school football.

Athens Christian (Georgia) has hired Mathis as their new head football coach. 

Mathis came off 2025 with a second successive losing season with the Morehouse Maroon Tigers, culminating in his dismissal from the team last December. His debut season was disastrous, with a 1-9 record and a 1-7 record in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, having just one win against Kentucky State University. The 2025 season was slightly better, with the team improving its record. The team went 3-7 overall and 3-5 in their conference.

It looked like Mathis deserved another year, but the program had become impatient with him. His last year came with a remarkable 27-20 victory against Tuskegee University in the Morehouse-Tuskegee Classic. 

With a coaching career that looked nothing like his playing days, Mathis is looking to rewrite that narrative with Athens Christian School. Interestingly, it is not his first time working as the head coach of a high school. His first job as a coach was at Savannah State University, where he was the offensive coordinator and inside receivers coach. But in 2017, he was named head football coach at Pinecrest Academy before serving as an assistant coach at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School and Fellowship Christian School.

At Pinecrest, he did not get the results as well. He left after three losing seasons of 1-10, 4-7, and 2-8, all summing up to an overall record of 7-25. Getting it wrong across several teams is a sign that Mathis’ coaching style is flawed.

Mathis was an excellent two-sport athlete who played both basketball and football at the University of New Mexico. He became the program’s first consensus All-American after he set a Division I record for most receiving yards. Also, he was the first player to have more than 250 receptions, 4,000 receiving yards, and 6,000 yards total. 

Terance Mathis’ NFL career

Following his outstanding college career, Mathis was selected by the New York Jets in the sixth round of the 1990 NFL Draft. He had four decent seasons with the Jets before returning to Georgia to play for the Atlanta Falcons. With them, he spent seven years that were the most brilliant years of his career. 

He earned Pro Bowl and Second Team All-Pro Honors in 1994, an appearance in Super Bowl XXXIII, and the team’s Man of the Year in 1998. His 13 NFL seasons ended with him playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2002. He recorded 689 receptions, 8,809 yards and 63 touchdowns in 206 games, ranking third in the Falcons’ receiving yards and touchdown receptions.

Should his time at Athens Christian School look more like his playing career, there is every possibility he earns another coaching role in a college.