Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993 TAG: 9312190034
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Steve Ragsdale didn't invent the Single Wing offense.
The Giles football coach never ran it in high school because Ragsdale wasn't a football player.
He has used the offense that is a throwback to the early days of football to bedevil opponents and win two state championships. The latest state title came this year as Ragsdale's Spartans posted a 14-0 record on the way to the Group A Division 2 crown. The other state title came in 1980.
Ragsdale beat out Pulaski County's Joel Hicks, whose team had won 21 in a row before losing the Group AAA Division 6 state championship game to Annandale 14-7, and North Cross' Jim Muscaro, whose team won the Private School Division I state title. Muscaro was last season's Timesland boys' basketball coach of the year when his squad won the state championship for private schools.
Ragsdale started his coaching career trying to use the Wing-T offense.
"I was basically trying to do a lot of things that we do in the Single Wing with a guy under center," Ragsdale said.
After two scrimmages, Ragsdale was convinced that wasn't correct. So he moved the quarterback out from under center and, for the most part, Giles hasn't had anyone take a direct snap since the mid-1970s.
"When we won the state championship in 1980, there were certain plays we put our blocking back under center. But we kind of went away from that," Ragsdale said.
Now all sandlot teams and school teams in Pearisburg that feed Giles run the Single Wing. Ragsdale says it's hard for other teams to prepare for that offense because they have difficulty simulating it.
Still, running the Single Wing doesn't make supermen of Giles' players.
"I don't care what offense you run, it's not a cure-all," Ragsdale said. "If the other team has better players than us, they're going to beat us.
"Where we think our offense makes a difference, if the game's pretty much even, then I think we have an advantage. We've won some games against teams that have better talent than us because of our offense, but it won't happen all the time. We've won some games over the years that in another offense we wouldn't have won."
Ragsdale is not invited to speak at clinics on the art of the Single Wing because few schools use the offense.
"Over the years, we've had quite a bit of correspondence from all over the country," he said. "Denison University in Division III was the last college to run Single Wing around 1980 and they put together a directory of coaches across the country running the Single Wing. So I've corresponded with people from Texas and Idaho. One guy contacted me from Washington, D.C. He works for a congressman, but he had written us when he lived in Idaho. He called and wanted to come down to see a game.
"From time to time, a coach toying with the idea of going to the Single Wing calls and says, `How about talking to me about it?' There are two or three men who live in North Carolina, one a retired coach, who watch us practice and always come up to see a game. We'll sit around talking about the Single Wing."
You can't bet that Giles will win a state title again next year. After all, it was 13 years between championships for Ragsdale. But you can be sure that no one will take a direct snap from center in Pearisburg as long as Ragsdale is the head coach.
by CNB