High School Football: Garnet Valley's Mike Ricci decides 2021 will be his last year
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MEDIANEWS GROUP FILE
Mike Ricci talks to his team after a game. Ricci confirmed that the 2021 season will be his last as the head football coach at Garnet Valley.
Garnet Valley football coach Mike Ricci looks on from the sideline during a game against Lower Merion in 2019. The 2021 season will be his last as the Jaguars' head coach.
One by one the old guard of Delaware County high school football coaches is moving on.
Mike Ricci, the second-winningest football boss in county history, confirmed Friday that the 2021 season will be his last as head coach at Garnet Valley.
This is Ricci’s 35th season as the head coach for the Jaguars, his 37th with the program and 38th overall as a coach. He was a volunteer assistant coach for two seasons at Garnet Valley before being named head coach in 1986. He spent the 1992 season as an assistant coach at Widener.
“I think 38 years is a pretty good run,” Ricci said when reached by phone.
Ricci said the timing was right to move on to the next chapter in his life.
“I’ll retire from teaching in June,” said Ricci, 59, who teaches English at the high school. “My son, Jon, will be a senior at the University of Delaware, where he plays football, that fall. I’ll be able to go to all his home and away games. My daughters, Theresa and Natalie, they play field hockey. They’ll be seniors at Garnet Valley that following year. I’ll get to go to their games. I could never get to their games now. And my son, Matt (an All-Delco wrestler), is likely going to end up at the Naval Academy or West Point and I want to be involved with that so family timing was the reason.”
Ricci's 246 career victories going into the season ranks second in county history behind Strath Haven’s Kevin Clancy (319 and counting). Steve Lennox retired at Interboro following the 2019 season with 313 career wins, but 84 of those came at Dickinson High School in Delaware. Lennox won 229 games in 27 seasons as the Bucs’ head coach.
Ricci’s overall record is 246-124-1 for a 66.4 career winning percentage. In his time at Garnet Valley he has seen the school grow from a small, Class 2A school in the 1980s to a Class 6A school today. And he has turned the Jaguars into a Central League, District 1 and state power during the course of his career. Garnet Valley has won seven Central League titles, six outright and one shared, since joining the league in 2008, including the last three in a row. The Jaguars bring a 25-game league winning streak into the season and are 104-12 since joining the league.
The Jaguars have also fared well at the district and state level during Ricci’s watch. They won District 1 Class 3A titles in 2006 and 2007 and reached the PIAA 3A title game in 2007. Since the PIAA went to six classifications in 2016 the Jaguars have played for the District 1 title in 2016 and '17 and reached the semifinals in 2018 and '19. The semifinal and championship rounds of the District 1 tournament are considered the first and second rounds of the state tournament. The Central League did not take part in the playoffs during the COVID-shortened season last year. In all, the Jaguars have made the state playoffs seven times since 2006.
“The memories to me are the kids who have been through the program and the families who have been through the program and through the school district,” Ricci said. “It’s just been spectacular. Our whole philosophy and our program is oneness and selflessness and the kids in our program have bought into that and really believed in that and lived that and it’s just made coaching an enjoyable venture.
“Of course, you think back to the team that went to the state championship back in 2007 but there’s been several teams that have become as good as we were capable of becoming, which is how we measure our success. It’s not really numbers of wins or losses, it’s can we take what we have and make it as good as we think we can be? And we’ve had several teams that I think have done that.”
Ricci said he would like to see the job go to one of his assistant coaches. Most of them have been with him for a decade or longer.
“It was a very tough decision,” Ricci said. “I started thinking about it last year and I just think it’s time. I don’t want to be one of those guys that hangs around and people are saying, ‘When’s this guy going to go?’ I feel like it’s a good time to go. We have great coaches at Garnet Valley. The program’s in great hands.”
