Former Parkview coach charged with stealing $65K from booster club, police say
A former Parkview track and field coach initially alleged to have stolen roughly $25,000 from the program’s booster club is now believed to have stolen approximately $65,000 over eight years, police said Thursday.
Matthew Henson, 52, took the money between January 2018 and December 2025, one month after he resigned his position, according to Gwinnett County Schools police. He faces a felony charge of theft by taking, according to Gwinnett jail and court records. He was booked in the jail Wednesday morning and released after posting bond later that day, online records show.
Captain/Assistant Director of Safety and Security at Gwinnett County Public Schools Mary Williford told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Henson used the funds for a “myriad of different things,” including personal purchases like subscriptions and a vacation.
“Cases with financial crimes get very complex, and so, as we start looking into it, obtaining multiple different search warrants, one thing would lead to another,” Williford said.
Police Lt. Gene Hamilton said Henson primarily accessed the donations through a debit card and checkbook that were used for the booster club’s account.
Donations were supposed to be used for uniforms and equipment. An investigation started in August 2025 when several parents raised concerns with the school, which notified the county’s internal audit system.
“The original tips that started coming was there were some concerns that they realized that money wasn’t being spent and put in the areas that they were told it was,” Williford said.
Williford said no one else has been charged in relation to the incident.
The AJC has reached out to Henson for comment.
The school district has requirements for accounting guidelines and documentation, though booster clubs are third parties, not county entities.
“If those requirements were being done by the track and field booster club, this situation likely would not have occurred,” Gwinnett County Executive Director of Budget, Strategy, and Risk Management Greg Johnson said. “So, it’s not that the lack of procedures don’t exist.
“Really, what we’re focusing on is increasing the oversight that those requirements are actually happening at each booster club within the county.”
No money has been returned to donors or the club.
Henson was hired in 2010, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post, and led Parkview’s boys track and field team to a state championship in 2018. He was inducted into the Gwinnett County Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2024 and the Georgia Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Hall of Fame last year.
Investigators believe Henson’s Hall of Fame status and long tenure with the program assisted the coach in his theft.
“Everybody involved with the coach, they all stated during the course of our investigation that he was very trustworthy,” Hamilton said. “They had no reason to believe that he was doing anything nefarious with the funds, so they really just didn’t think that he would be somebody that would something like that.”
A Gwinnett County Schools spokesperson could not confirm if Henson had an approved stipend from the booster club outside of the alleged stolen money.