Ira Riggins Jr. knows all about the storied legacy of North Fort Myers High School football. And he’s determined to help make the Red Knights a perennial power once again.
On June 3, North Fort Myers announced Riggins as the 14th head football coach in the program’s history. The 39-year-old former defensive coordinator replaces David Pasquale, who stepped down in May following spring football after two seasons running the program. The Red Knights went 9-12 under Pasquale, reaching the playoffs last season and losing in the first round to Riverdale.
Riggins said success on the football field starts with an unwavering commitment from the entire program to do things the correct way.
“It’s a process with these young men of getting them to do the right things,” he said. “All young men want structure and discipline. If you can put structure and discipline into a program and get these young men to follow, everything else takes care of itself.”
Riggins, a 2005 graduate of Dunbar High School, played collegiate football at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif., and Central Methodist University in Fayette, Mo.
Upon returning to the area, Riggins worked as an assistant football coach at Ida Baker and South Fort Myers before joining Dwayne Mack’s staff at North Fort Myers. It was a homecoming of sorts for Riggins, whose father, Ira Riggins Sr., was a standout for the Red Knights in the late 1970s and early 1980s under legendary coach Ron Hoover. The elder Riggins’ play inspired a young Deion Sanders, who has called Riggins Sr. one of his childhood idols and recently reconnected with him.
“He talks about that a lot,” said Riggins of his father. “Just being able to meet Deion after all the years have passed, that was a real highlight for him.”
Riggins, who works as a dropout prevention teacher at North, will have a couple of former mentors on the sidelines alongside him. Former Ida Baker head coach Brian Conn will serve as the Red Knights’ offensive coordinator while Mack will volunteer to assist Riggins in running the team’s defense.
“There’s a great foundation here,” Riggins said. “There’s a lot of pieces here that we can build upon and get this program going back in the right direction when North was at the top.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: North Fort Myers High names Ira Riggins Jr. as new head football coach
Reporting by Dan DeLuca, Fort Myers News-Press / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
