Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 10, 1993 TAG: 9312100212
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Medium
The fact that Ragsdale's teams at Giles High School would use the antiquated single-wing offense, a style that was unfashionable even when Ragsdale's father, Harry, used it at Narrows High School in the 1960s, must have been predetermined.
It didn't always seem that way.
Now, though, there is no disputing the football-coaching blood coursing through Steve Ragsdale's veins. He has shaped a football dynasty at Giles, which has a 13-0 record and hosts Central Senior High School of Lunenburg County on Saturday for the Group AA Division 2 state football championship.
Steve Ragsdale, who coached Giles to the Group AA title in 1980, didn't play football in high school. Instead, he played basketball, a sport that earned him a full scholarship to Roanoke College after graduating from Narrows.
As a kid, Ragsdale "had no idea of being a coach of any kind," he said. But the signs had been there all along.
Harry Ragsdale had coached about every team that picked up a ball at Narrows. As a youngster, Steve sat at Harry's knee on Sunday mornings and watched game films from the Friday before. It was then he learned the intricacies of the single-wing.
"When I was in the third and fourth grade, I could diagram almost every play we run right now," said Ragsdale.
The single-wing is unique because there is no quarterback. The ball is snapped through the air to any one of four running backs. The player with the ball either hides it in his gut and runs, or hands the ball off to another back. It is a deceptive, entertaining style that virtually no one uses anymore, even though defenses are confounded by it.
After graduating from Roanoke College - where he played on the 1972 Division II national championship squad coached by Charlie Moir and starring Frankie Allen, both of whom later coached at Virginia Tech - Ragsdale worked on his master's degree at Tech. He started going to high school football and basketball games with his dad, who had retired from coaching while Steve was still in grade school.
"I kind of got the fever [to coach] a little bit," Ragsdale said.
When Ragsdale finished at Tech in 1975, he was offered a chance to coach basketball at Giles, then a member of the New River District. It was a plum job.
Ragsdale spent his autumns coaching eighth-grade football, using the single-wing offense, since that was what he knew best.
In 1978, he got the football job and coached two sports until giving up basketball in 1986.
From day one, he has used the single-wing, refining it each year, turning it into an unstoppable force that averaged around 40 points per game during the regular season.
Harry Ragsdale - who, coincidentally, was raised in Lunenburg County - lived long enough to see his son use the single-wing offense to win the Group AA state football championship in 1980. Harry died in the fall of 1983 after a long illness, just a few days before Giles was to take on unbeaten Abingdon in the playoffs.
Giles won, 28-0.
"It was one of the greatest wins I've ever had," Steve Ragsdale said. Another great win is just a single-wing and a prayer away.
by CNB