Ricky Woods
It started with a phone call, sometime in the early 1990s.
Ricky Woods picked up the phone – traditional, cell phones not yet ubiquitous – and found Al Posnack on the line.
His old high school wrestling coach, Woods barely a year removed from his prep career, had a request.
“Actually, my coaching story is kind of funny, because I was just going to college, not an athlete, and my high school coach from Hillwood called me,” Woods told TSSAA. “And he said the longtime Bellevue Middle School coach was retiring, they hired a new coach who had never wrestled, and he asked me if I would be willing to go and help out. I thought I’d be there a couple weeks, then it turned into the entire season and the entire season turned into where we are now.
“I fell in love with it, and here we are.”
Indeed. Nearly 35 years later, Woods still is answering the call. He’s now the veteran head wrestling coach at Harpeth High School, the school’s athletics director and served on various TSSAA state committees, as well as the wrestling coaches’ council.
He’s also a recipient of the TSSAA Distinguished Service Award for his dedicated service to high school sports and youth.
“I’m honored that someone would look to nominate me,” Woods said. “This is such a prestigious award; it’s very humbling.”
Humble is the Woods approach. With an aw-shucks disposition and quick with a laugh, he much prefers to speak about his volunteer wrestling coaching roots, a few years at CPA and his ongoing dedication at Harpeth.
The kids keep him coming back; their biggest challenge just might be matching Woods’s energy.
“For me, I keep coming back year after year because of just what it is, because some of these kids, they need wrestling more than wrestling needs them,” said Woods, a two-time state qualifier as a high school wrestler who transitioned into coaching while earning his degree at Belmont. “It plays such an impact. If I can keep a kid off the streets or we can provide an opportunity for them … I view our wrestling field house as more of a community center.
“It’s open year-round, there pretty much all time. I stay in coaching because of what I can do for these kids; it’s not about the money it’s about the love of the sport and love of working with these young people and helping shape them from boys into men. I’m as energetic now as I was first when started.”
His dedication and duration to the sport and the youth have come full circle. These days, Woods still coaches first-generation wrestlers but he’s seeing more and more of his former charges become husbands, fathers and contributing members of societies.
For a man long on energy and short on excuses, these moments are bonus fuel.
“They’re awesome when guys reach back out to you, and as a matter of fact my first state champion, Tyler Christian, he got married, he sent me a wedding invitation,” Woods recalled. “A beautiful ceremony, got to visit with him and his family.
“I’ve also had countless wrestlers come back and serve as assistant coaches, including now, Jackson Whitlow, he’s won some world champs in jujitsu. Several have gone onto collegiate wrestling and several have gone into military service to serve our country. It’s a special group.”
One Woods intends to continue growing.
“I’ve been asked a number of times, when I was gonna hang it up,” Woods said, “and my response to that always is, when I get tired of it, everybody will know.
“I’m having fun, and I’ve got no plans of stepping down. When I do, I will let the world know.”
