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For Arkansas-bound Ritchie, a little nostalgia trip
It's impossible to estimate the number of kids a high school coach motivates over a long career, but it's a lot, especially when you count your own offspring.
For Tom Ritchie, an exciting coaching life is about to take a permanent road trip to the land of Sam Walton, Bill Clinton and the Ozark Mountains.
Ritchie is leaving Liberty High School after 14 years as a coach and moving to Searcy, Ark., to become an assistant professor at Harding University. He will teach health and wellness in the Kinesiology Department.
Ritchie is the only varsity boys soccer coach Liberty has had in its 14 years, and he guided the Eagle volleyball team the last 10 years. Throw in three years as a LHS field hockey coach and a few other teams, and his resume includes 30 seasons as a coach at LHS. He was also the head volleyball coach at Fauquier for two years.
“I'm getting ready to exhale. After 14 years you go, 'Wow.' It's a graduation of sorts, I guess,” said Ritchie, who has spent 16 years as a Fauquier County Schools employee. He works as a physical education teacher helping special-needs kids at the county's 18 public schools.
As he readies for a new life, Ritchie, 50, takes with him a mental scrapbook of memories that includes two regional berths in volleyball, a historic first win over Fauquier in soccer and coaching his two sons and two daughters.
“It was a pleasure to be able to coach all four of my children,” Ritchie said. “Thomas and Jamie both played varsity soccer starting as freshman. We weren’t sure Thomas was going to play after breaking his femur at James Wood kicking for the football team, but he started as a freshman.”
Daughters Melissa and Christy started for the LHS volleyball team as freshmen. Christy, who graduated last Saturday, was a team captain and MVP her senior year. Melissa currently attends Harding and Christy, who also shined in soccer, is enrolling there in the fall.
Among Richie's most memorable victories was a 3-2 win over Fauquier in boys soccer in 1996. It was the Eagles' first triumph over their county rival in “the beautiful game,” as soccer is called, although it sure got ugly for Ritchie's clothes...See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.
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