Conversation with Coach – Mike Ricci, Garnet Valley
Tagged under: Coaches Corner, District 1, News, pfn
Phil Myers | September 28, 2022
Photos tbone smith
What happened in 2006 that took a successful coach and football program to the next level? Coach Mike Ricci’s record at Garnet Valley was 97-93-1 in his first nineteen years. Since 2006 his teams were an amazing 164-32. The answer to what caused that drastic turnaround, Ricci’s coaching philosophies, what his plans are after retirement, and more are all contained in this intriguing interview that was conducted just before the 2022 season began.
Although Mike Ricci is officially retired as head football coach, he still plans to be active in spreading the word about the program he successfully built at Garnet Valley. He also hasn’t ruled out coming back to coach at some point, but if asked today the answer would be ‘no.’ Coach Ricci was a godsend, not only to the Jaguar football program, but to the Garnet Valley High School as well where he taught English for 38 years.
Ricci grew up in Delaware. His dad, Len, went to Chichester High School and then West Chester University. He was a Special Ed. teacher. His mom, Tess, grew up in Delaware and went to the University of Delaware to become an English teacher. They met when they were both teaching at Warner Junior High School in Wilmington, Delaware. Mike Ricci was the oldest of 4 children. His sister, Linda, went to Ithaca College. His brother, Patrick, went to East Carolina. His brother, Gary, went to Gettysburg where he was the quarterback on the football team.
Ricci went to Brandywine High School in Wilmington, Delaware and graduated in 1980. He played football and was the tight end on offense and strong safety on defense. Ricci was also on the swim team and played baseball. He attended Susquehanna University and graduated in 1984 with a teaching degree in English. Ricci played on the football team as a tight end and also played baseball.
When asked about his wife and children Ricci said, “My wife, Connie, grew up in Michigan, attended the University of Michigan and went to dental school at the University of Michigan. She had a practice in Wilmington. My son, Jonathan, attends the University of Delaware and plays tight end also. He’s 6’4” and weighs 250 pounds. My son, Matthew, is in his plebe year at the Naval Academy where he’s going to wrestle. He’s 5’6” and weighs 140 pounds. I have twin daughters who will be seniors at Garnet Valley. They both play field hockey. Natalie is going to play field hockey at LaSalle University and Theresa is going to play field hockey at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.”
PM: “What was the most important thing or concept you tried to teach your players?”
MR: “I guess the best way to start that is, at the parent meeting I would start by saying, ‘football is the least important thing that we do.’ The reason I said that is because, as an educator, and by the way, our whole approach was education based, we really felt football was the vehicle we could use to help kids become better students, better people, and ultimately better football players as well. By focusing on that and making it that football was the least important, nobody had any status on our team. Whether you were the best player on the team or whether you were the manager on the team, it didn’t matter. Everybody had the same expectations and that was being the best you could be at whatever it was that you did.”
PM: “I think that differs from some other coaches. Your success over the years reflects that.”
MR: “I’m not saying our way is better than anyone else’s. It’s just that we did things a little differently from talking to other people. That’s what worked for us. We created a pyramid of principles. I could email you a chart. I call it visual articulation of our football program. The pinnacle of that pyramid is ‘Oneness.’ And ‘Oneness’, you know, team unity for want of a better term.”
“When I became head coach in 1986, I had just turned 24 years old, there was Tony Caia. He was a really successful coach. He was one of the truest educators I ever met. His whole purpose was that he was going to help kids become better kids, better husbands, better fathers, and better community members. Coach Caia was one of my assistants and at the end of practice every day he’d just say ‘oneness man.’ We went to great lengths through the years to develop a whole series of things to increase that, strengthen that and create that ‘Oneness’ on our teams.”
PM: “You stated you began coaching at the age of 24. Briefly tell me how you got into coaching and how’d you get the job at Garnet Valley.”
MR: “I graduated from Susquehanna in 1984 in May. I started teaching at Garnet Valley in September. The first thing I did when I got hired was contact the head football coach to tell him I was interested in coaching. I knew it would be volunteer of course, but I wanted to do whatever I could to help the team. I had been coaching a long time before that, not football but anywhere I could help coach. I knew I always wanted to do that. So, I got the job as voluntary assistant at Garnet Valley for two years. When the head coach stepped down, I was able to get the head coaching job. I coached at Garnet Valley from ’86 through ’89. Then in 1990 I coached at Widener University for one year under Bill Manlove. (Manlove’s college coaching record at three schools is 212-111-1.) I just wanted to see if I wanted to coach at the college level or stay in high school. I liked a lot of things about college, but I felt like I really enjoyed getting to know the whole family and getting the family involved. It’s a lot easier to do that in high school than it was in college.” Ricci also coached baseball at Garnet Valley for a while.
PM: “How were you able to build the program to what it is today at Garnet Valley?”
MR: “Well, a lot of hard work. A lot of hiring the right people. A lot of going and learning from other people. Early on in my career I sat down with Kevin Clancy from Strath Haven and Steve Lennox from Interboro. Steve Lennox was my football coach in high school. He was an assistant at Brandywine High School. I played for Steve and another coach, Lee Sibley who was a successful coach in Delaware. Those were two of my assistants and two great coaches, who showed me early on what great coaching looked like. I still talk to them to this day.”
“So, I talked to Steve and I talked to Kevin, and really anybody I could talk with about how they did things, and how they were successful, and why they thought they were successful. I tried to take the best of what I could from other people and make it fit into what we were trying to do at Garnet Valley.”
“I hired some great guys. Guys who were not only good football guys, but more importantly, good people guys. I wanted good character guys so the kids could see that. In fact, one of the things I did the last 16 years or so I coached, I would take my coaches down to Ocean City, N.J. for a retreat. Each one would have to contact a coach from a successful program and report on what they learned. We found a lot of successful programs shared very similar foundational or fundamental principles. So, that validated what we were doing or it became an idea of something we could add to our program.”
PM: “Coach, I noticed your program really took off in 2006. I’m curious as to why in 2006 did things took off the way they did as far as wins and losses?”
(Coach Ricci’s career coaching record stands at 261-125-1. Only Kevin Clancy of Strath Haven has more wins in District 1. As mentioned earlier since 2006, Ricci’s record was 164-32.)
MR: “You hit the nail on the head. In 2006 there was a guy named Doug Ekmark who was a representative with a company called Bigger, Faster, Stronger. They used to tour the country and go to different high schools and colleges who wanted to implement their program. They would put on seminars for your team and teach you different lifts, how they did it, and how to record it. Doug Ekmark came in and he and I hit it off. Every time he came to the Philadelphia area he would stay at my house. He was a football coach out in Minnesota. He told me his team was a two-platoon team. Nobody went both ways.”
(By 2006 when Pennsylvania only had 4 classes, Garnet Valley had grown from a little 2A school to a 3A school and was still growing.)
“So, going into the 2006 season I met with the coaches and then the seniors and we decided to give that a try. By starting 22 guys and another 22 on special teams, it led to more dedication in the weight room. That way our thinking was to get 44 kids on the field. Practice became better. The drop off in talent between, say the best 11 kids and the next best 11 kids became less of a drop off. More people were intently involved in what went on in practice. There were fewer injuries and more well-rested kids. It worked! So, from 2006 till 2015 or so, 10 years I think, we were strictly a two-platoon team. We only had 2 kids during that time that went both ways, John Murray and Ryan Woods.”
“It gave us an edge in preparation and helped reinforce the concept of ‘Oneness.’ In 2006 we had the facilities in place, we had the weight room we needed in place, we had the number of kids in place, we had the pipeline from the middle school and youth program in place, we had the coaching staff in place, we had the culture established. Everything just kind of came to a head in 2006.”
PM: “That brings me to the next question. If you could talk to any one coach, past or present, who would it be?”
MR: “There’s a lot of guys I’d like to talk to, but the first name that comes to mind is Vince Lombardi. I love a lot of the things he did.”
PM: “In your opinion do you think he would be successful coaching today?”
MR: “I do. Somebody just asked me if the kids have changed. I don’t think the kids have changed as much as the world around them has changed. Our football program is living proof that kids want to have discipline. They want to have STAR expectations. They want to be held accountable. I think Lombardi was a master communicator. He held players brutally accountable to the standards that were established. And I think that’s what any good coach does. What made Lombardi great is he was true to who he was. He didn’t try to be somebody else. As soon as people see that you are somebody they can trust and you care about them…I feel like he could coach in today’s era.”
PM: “How do you measure success?”
MR: “It’s never about wins and losses. Our goals are about becoming the best team we are capable of becoming. But, how do you measure that? I feel you establish standards that point to that and you do things that are necessary to be successful. The things you can control like the effort we put forth, the way we react to things, the attitude we have, etc. If we can get the players and coaches to do that, then I feel like we are successful.”
PM: “What was the toughest thing about coaching?”
MR: “The toughest part, I guess was without question, the toughest part was watching kids get injured. To see a kid who put his heart and soul into everything and then get injured. That was always devastating.”
PM: “What is the biggest thrill that you got out of coaching?”
MR: “The biggest thrill is the relationships with the different players over the years.”
PM: “What do you want your legacy to be?”
MR: “I guess that we were able to create an education-based program that valued every person that was part of our program and that we provided an opportunity for people who bought into our program to become the best version of themselves that they were able to be as a person, as a student, and as an athlete.”
PM: “What was the reason you decided to retire?”
MR: “My oldest son, Jonathan, is in his last year playing football at the University of Delaware. I want to be able to get to all his games this year, not just the home games. My son, Matt, is going to the Naval Academy, so the Plebe summer he just went through, I wanted to be available for whatever he needed with that. My daughters are seniors and play field hockey that is during football, so I didn’t get to see many of their games when I was coaching. Everything just worked out where it was the right time for me to go.”
PM: “Are there any fantastic or favorite games over the years that come to mind?”
MR: “The very first year I was head coach in 1986, our last game we were 5-4 and it was really important for our guys to finish the season with a winning record. We were playing Archmere, a powerhouse small school from Delaware, who needed a win to go to the state tournament. We were down 14-0 and then in the last two minutes of the half we scored 2 touchdowns to make it 14-14. In the 4th quarter we went down and scored to go up 21-14 and Archmere came roaring back and scored on a fourth and four where the kid was laying in the end zone on his back and a tipped pass fell right on his chest. They had to win to get in the state tournament, so they had to go for two and we stopped them. We won 21-20 and it was euphoria. The kids were so excited. It was a great game. I always look at that game as one of the most fun and exciting games that we had.”
“Another one was in 1991 when I came back from coaching at Widener. We had lost to Interboro in week 4. We had a kid hurt in that game that did everything for us. He was our quarterback, our cornerback, our kicker, our kick returner. Interboro beat us 49-0, but it was only 7-0 when he got hurt. The next week Unionville beat Interboro and we had a bye week. Then we hosted Unionville, our rival, for homecoming. Some people picked us to lose 50-0. And we won! That was before Garnet Valley had bleachers and people sat up on the hill. The hill just exploded and they carried the kids off the field. That was exciting.”
He mentioned a couple other games highlighted by the North Penn game where Garnet Valley trailed 35-7 in the third quarter and came back to win 36-35.
PM: “How has coaching changed since you first started?”
MR: “The science of coaching has changed dramatically. By science, I mean the understanding of conditioning, the understanding of strength training, understanding the importance of sleep, feeding your body the right stuff. The nutritional aspect, the strength aspect, the conditioning aspect, all that has changed.”
PM: “Here’s a couple of ‘fun’ questions. What did you do with your spare time?”
MR: “What spare time. You are like a CEO of a small company. Not even a small company, a pretty good-sized company. If you look at it like this, we had over 100 kids, you have 200 parents, 20 coaches. That’s 320 people. During the off-season our emphasis was meeting with parents a half hour. The meeting had nothing to do with football. It was really about dealing with high school boys, teaching them how to study and the importance of that.”
PM: “Do you have any hobbies?”
MR: “One of the things I’ve been doing is that I speak to a lot of businesses. That’s really my hobby I guess is going out and talking to different businesses. Because of the culture we’ve developed at Garnet Valley, because of the universal appeal, businesses want to know how we developed that culture. They want to develop a culture of ‘Oneness.’ So, I think I might try and go nationally with that and see how that goes.”
PM: “Is there anywhere in the United States that you’ve never been, but would like to get to at some point?”
MR: “One of the things I love is different college campuses. My wife is a Michigan grad and I’ve never been to the University of Michigan. It just so happens the week Delaware has a bye Penn State is at Michigan. So, I’m going to go to that game. That’s one of the reasons I want to travel around with my speaking. I hope to work it out so I can get to an Alabama-Auburn game one year or get out to see Notre Dame sometime.”
PM: “What does your favorite meal consist of?”
MR: “I just made it. My grandmother was the greatest meatball maker I know. So, my favorite meal would be spaghetti and meatballs a la my grandmother.”
PM: And what would be your favorite dessert?”
MR: “I love all kinds of desserts. I love banana cream pie, I love chocolates, I love chocolate cake, cupcakes, brownies. I’m a definite dessert guy.”
PM: “Any favorite movies. Coach?”
MR: “My favorite movie I always say is ‘The Sting.’” (Stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford.) “I love that movie. I also like ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Remember the Titans.’”
PM: “Any favorite TV shows?”
MR: “I was a big ‘Seinfeld’ fan. That was my show.”
PM: “What is one thing that most people may not know about you?”
MR: “I love to cook. My grandmother taught me some great stuff. I make cinnamon buns, I make doughnuts. It’s a great way to connect people, I guess. People love baked goods.”
PM: “Are you going to help the new coach any?”
MR: “I guess my help will be as a consultant type role. Eric VanWyk, who is taking over the program, was the quarterback on our team that went to the state championship game in 2007. He’s a phenomenal kid. He will take the program to the next level.”
PM: “Is there any possibility you would consider coming back and coach again at some point?”
MR: “That’s a good question. Right now, I would say no. I think where I would be most helpful to people now is help them with the whole concept of program building. That’s what I’d like to do.”
PM: “Any other thoughts?”
MR: “One of the things I tell the kids that I teach and coach is if you can find something to do for your career that you’re passionate about, you’ll never work a day in your life as the old cliché goes. I really feel fortunate that I was able to find it with the teaching and coaching at Garnet Valley. It’s a tremendous community. I love the people that I worked with. I loved the students I was able to teach. I loved the families I was able to interact with. I feel really blessed the way that everything was able to work out the way that it did.”
We talked a bit more and agreed to go out to eat when I get to the Glen Mills/Garnet Valley School District area again sometime. It was a real pleasure talking with Mike Ricci. I hope he gives me a passing grade for this article since I am a bit nervous writing about an English teacher who became a legend in District 1 and across Pennsylvania coaching football.
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