GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. — Green Cove Springs is mourning Ron Riddle, a man who did more than coach at Clay High School. He changed it.
Riddle was the first Black educator to help integrate Florida schools in Clay County. He went on to win a state championship, help build a track and teach generations of students.
“[Coach] was a part of the tribe, the village, that helped raise me,” a former student said.
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Another former student recalled how Riddle pushed her to see more in herself. “While I was busy wanting to just go to a few beauty pageants, you were like, no, you are multifaceted,” she said.
Riddle spent 37 years teaching and coaching, and countless more hours off the clock.
“Coach never needed a microphone,” Clay High’s Coach Reape said. “I don’t know if he used a whistle, I can’t remember. He was loud enough to make you stop.”
Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook described his kindness to their family. “The kindness that he showed not only to me, but my family and my father and my mother,” Cook said.
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Riddle was the first Black educator to help integrate Florida schools at Clay High. In 1966, he led the Blue Devils football team to a state championship.
In a video posted on social media, Riddle said he had been told one of the Black teachers would likely be sent to the white school. “And when I came down here, they hired me,” he said. “And see, God had already prepared that before I even got here.”
Riddle made sure players had a ride, no matter the destination. Clay High’s Coach Reape said he drove players to Division II football programs in West Virginia and Virginia, where students often aren’t flown in.
“They wanted to continue their career, and Coach did this for, again, for decades,” Reape said.
Riddle’s legacy is also visible on campus. He held fish fry after fish fry to raise money for a rubber track himself.
Coach Reape, who arrived at the school in 1993, said people had long talked about getting a rubber track. “Well, 2020 is something,” Reape said. “We got a track, and obviously it was named in Coach Riddle’s honor.”
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Riddle retired in 2003, but he never really left. He started substitute teaching.
“I’m still trying to reach as many kids as I can right now,” Riddle said in a social media video. “And God’s doing things in places that you can’t ever see, for good, to reach somebody else.”
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