RESERVE — Four finalists have been named in the search for one of the most coveted coaching positions in the River Parishes.

Superintendent Kevin George said the next football coach and athletic director at East St. John High would be Gregory Gathers, Brandon Brown, Damon Mason or Corey Lambert.

“We’re going to have interviews on (April 17) and should, by (April 20), have a name to release to everyone as the new head coach,” George said.

Gathers, an East St. John High graduate, is an assistant football coach at East Ascension High School.

His journey to receiving a new kidney was recently chronicled in L’OBSERVATEUR.

He underwent a three-hour procedure March 27, 2017, at Ochsner Medical Center in Jefferson, during which he received a kidney from childhood friend Christopher Wallace of LaPlace.

Gathers was a standout defensive lineman at East St. John High in the 1990s and went on to a brilliant career at Georgia Tech, becoming the school’s all-time leader in sacks.

Another East St. John High graduate, Brown is the head coach at 2A St. Helena College and Career Academy, where the Hawks recently wrapped a playoff season with an appearance in the state championship game.

Brown is 36-25 at St. Helena after taking over a program that barely averaged a win a season in the three years before his arrival.

Mason is a LaPlace native and Destrehan High School graduate. He played collegiately at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, where his number is retired.

He is a professional veteran of seven Arena Football League teams and currently is an assistant coach in the league.

Lambert was most recently head football coach at John Ehret High School in Marrero, where he took over in 2012 and proceeded to go 30-8 over the next five seasons.

Lambert was fired as football coach just a few weeks before the start of the 2017 season for allegedly ignoring system spending guidelines and illegal player recruitment.

A Louisiana High School Athletic Association inquiry failed to verify any of the recruiting violation allegations, and an appeal hearing to the School District found his dual roles of assistant principal and head football coach as, possibly, too demanding.