Rebuilding effort for Smolder with Ripley football program

RIPLEY, W.Va. — New Ripley football coach Eddie Smolder will be tasked with another rebuilding effort after leading Sissonville to back-to-back playoff appearances in his four seasons there.

Smolder, who was officially recommended for the Ripley coaching position last week, took over a Sissonville team in 2011 that didn’t win a game the year before. After a 2-8 start in his first year with the Indians, Smolder finished his final three years there with an overall record of 22-11.

“Sissonville was very good to me to give me a chance to be a head coach at 29 years old,” Smolder said. “Met a lot of great people and coached a lot of great young me. We were glad to get the program to where it’s at now. We had a lot of fun and success – but it’s time to take over a new program, which is my alma mater. I’m very excited and honored to be the next Ripley High School football coach.”

Smolder is a 1998 graduate of Ripley High School.

“When I was in high school and even in middle school, going to Death Valley on Friday nights was always exciting — we went to the playoffs three straight years then,” Smolder said. “Ripley has potential to be a competitive winning program year-in and year-out. My goal is to get it back to where it once was.

“The biggest thing we need to do is get athletes out of the school to buy-in to what we’re going to do,” he said. “Once you do that, set a great off-season program in place. I firmly believe that if you work hard and do the right thing, good things will happen to you. We’re going to try to improve each day and build off of that.”

Over the past five seasons, Ripley has gone a combined 16-34. The complete HS Sportsline interview with Smolder is posted above.

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