Coach Jim Rankin
Butler High School hired the former Ellwood City coach Jim Rankin recently to be the Golden Tornado’s next football coach. When I first heard this, I chuckled a little bit because from the stories I heard about the coach during his stay in Ellwood, a tornado fits accordingly.
Rankin’s coaching career began as an assistant at Fox Chapel, followed by eight years as head coach at Ellwood City. He coached here from 1979 to 1986 compiling a 37-44-1 record. Coach Rankin is a member of the Pennsylvania High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame, and has won the WPIAL and Pennsylvania State titles with North Allegheny High School in 1990.
I personally did not play for Coach Rankin but have heard enough stories about the man and his coaching style that I feel like I know him. The men that played for him still enjoy recalling the stories and there really is no need to exaggerate them even though they may seem exaggerated.
His players still talk about him like Chicago Bear fans talk about Mike Ditka. You can see the scene straight out of the Saturday Night Live skit taking place when four guys got together on a wing night and the subject turned to football in the early 80′s. You can almost picture the conversation…
Who would win in a fight, Rankin or Mike Tyson? – Rankin
Okay, how about Rankin versus a hurricane? – Rankin
Okay, but what if the hurricane was named Rankin? – hmmmm.
This might seem a little far fetched but this is how much regard his players still have for their former coach. Since I did not play for the coach myself, I am not going to try and re-tell one of many stories I have heard about Coach Rankin. Instead, I am going to let you tell your stories to all of us. Please leave a comment below, or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com
I played for J.R. the first two seasons at EC (79 & 80). One of my favorite speaches from J.R. was when Jim took some chalk. He put a line on the top of the chalk board and said this is where the good teams like Aliquipa are right now. He then marked the bottom of the chalkboard and said that’s where the bad teams are right now. Then he bends over and puts a mark just above the floor and says thats where we are right now!!!
Jim was a great motivator and taught us how to play with heart.
I had the privilege of playing for coach Rankin his last 3 years at Ellwood. I know how things may get embellished over time but most of the stories you hear about him are pretty accurate. Although a few of his coaching methods probably would not have been accepted in today’s day and age I can honestly say that he was able to get every ounce of ability out of his players. I don’t have the memory I used to have but one memory does stay very vivid in my mind. It was a Saturday afternoon game at Quaker Valley which at the time was one of the poorer teams in the section. It was the 9th game and we all new we had Riverside the next week. The coaches all week warned us not to look past Quaker Valley because we were playing for home field for the playoffs. At halftime we were LOSING by one point (7-6 I believe) and as we walked off the field the Quaker Valley players and fans really began to taunt us. All of us were pretty upset to say the least. Embarrassed to the point were we were thinking “QUAKER VALLEY was taunting ELLWOOD CITY?!?!? “……In the locker room we were all standing around nervously waiting to hear what coach was going to say. Not only were we anxious to go out and start playing wolverine football but also anxious to see to what degree coach Rankin was going to rip into us. Was he going to punch a chalkboard? Slam locker doors? How loud was he going to scream at us as he called us out individually for playing so poorly? As was proper protocol at the time, we rose to our feet and became quiet whenever Coach walked into the locker room ready to get whatever tongue lashing we rightly deserved. He climbing up and stood on a table that was in the room and just looked at us for a few moments with that stare that he used to refer to as “eyes like burning coles”. After these few moments as we waited for the worst he calmly says ” Gentlemen, You know what you have to do. Now go do it.” That’s all he had to say. We ran out onto the field and beat them pretty easily from that point on. I cannot explain why this memory stays with me more than any other but it does. He seemed to have that knack for just saying the right thing at the right time.