Singlewingin'

By Vic Edwards

Early in the 1900's, a coach named Glenn "Pop" Warner was coaching the Carlisle Indians. He had a player named Jim Thorpe with such raw talent that he formulated an offense that was later called the 'Single-Wing'. Prior to the 1950's, most colleges ran this offense until the advent of the T-formation late in the 1940's. The Pittsburg Steelers gave up the single-wing for the T-formation in 1952. But the single-wing is not completely dead. It is still run by a small group of teams across the country, mostly at the high school level. Before Stephen Ragsdale and the Giles Spartans, there was his dad Harry Ragsdale (The Coach) running the Single-Wing offense back in 1931 at the other Giles County school, Narrows High School. The Green Wave compiled five unbeaten seasons under Harry, including a 28-0 record in his last three years on the job from 1960-62. Coach Stephen C. Ragsdale (Coach Stevens) was named the head football coach for the Spartans of Giles High School in 1978. His only experience with football was hanging around the football field as a kid with his dad and watching and learning about the Single-Wing offense his dad hung on to, from the old days. Could and would Coach Ragsdale dare install his dad's offense at Giles? Could he expect success from a formation that even the Steelers gave up on more than a quarter of a century ago? Giles was not a football school. In fact, they had only had a couple of winning seasons in the schools nearly 20 years of existence. He dug in his cleats, determined to turn losers into winners, and at least develop some pride in a school and community, deep in the Appalachian Mountains, that was long overdue.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1505559383
• ISBN13: 9781505559385
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"