Massaponax, Spotsylvania stay in house for new football coaches
Continuity was the common theme as Massaponax and Spotsylvania filled their head football coaching vacancies this week.After having just one head coach in their 26-year history, the Panthers stayed in house — and in family — by promoting assistant Shane Ludden to succeed his father, Eric.
And the Knights chose offensive coordinator Conway Reid, the starting quarterback on their 1994 state championship team, to take over for Jeremy Jack.
Both appointments were approved by the Spotsylvania County School Board.
Shane Ludden, himself a former quarterback at Massaponax, inherits a talented team but faces some high expectations. His father founded the Panthers’ program in 1998 and became a perennial playoff team, winning 208 games and reaching the VHSL Group 5A state final in 2014. He was named Free Lance-Star coach of the decade for the 2010s.
“Its not easy to fill the shoes of a legend,” said Shane Ludden, who served as a ball boy in the program’s early year. “He’s been working here forever. But we’ve built a great foundation and we’ve got a great coaching staff that has all stuck together.
“There’s pressure in following in my father’s footsteps, but I’m ready to try to live up to the reputation that Massaponax has built throughout the years.”
Shane Ludden coached a variety of positions in 11 seasons as an assistant and spent the last four years as offensive coordinator, overseeing a sometimes explosive run-heavy triple-option offense that was difficult to prepare for defend in an era of spread attacks.
He plans to maintain that approach while adding a few new wrinkles to exploit his players’ skills. The offense has evolved in recent years, with the Panthers taking roughly 15 percent of their snaps in the shotgun or pistol formation last season.
“Year in and year out, option football can be an equalizer if you’re up against a more talented opponent,” Shane Ludden said. “And when you have more talent, it can really create separation.
“We’ll still be mainly option, but you might notice a few little differences.”
Eric Ludden said he had contemplated stepping down for the past few years and began giving his son more responsibilities, grooming him as his possible successor. He endorsed Shane for the job but was not involved in the final decision.
Ludden informed his staff of his plans to retire after a 41-21 Region 5D semifinal loss to Stone Bridge last November but didn’t tell his players until after the team’s recent postseason banquet.
“It’s hard to jump off the merry-go-round,” said Eric Ludden, who previously served as head coach at J.E.B. Stuart (now Justice High School) in Fairfax. “I was looking for the right time. Last year, we had a lot of talent leaving, and I didn’t want to leave that to the next guy. But this year, we started seven sophomores, so things were moving in the right direction.”
Walking off the field after the his final game as head coach, “I wasn’t thinking about retiring,” he said. “My mind was on how to fix certain things and what we do next. Then it hit me, ‘Wow, that’s it.’ It’s a hard realization.”
Eric Ludden and his wife Rebecca plan to visit Ireland and Antarctica in the year ahead, then may consider returning as an assistant coach. He admitted that after four decades of spending nearly every fall Friday night on the sideline, he’s not sure how much he’ll miss it.
“It’s gonna be really strange,” he said. “It is right now.”
Reid likewise has been a fixture at Spotsylvania, first as a player and for the past decade as an assistant. He joined the staff as a junior varsity assistant under former coach Al Johnson, then became head JV coach and eventually varsity offensive coordinator.
He was a logical choice to take over when Jack stepped aside after seven seasons to follow his son Jake, who is projected to play a prominent role this fall as a linebacker at Shenandoah University in Winchester.
“Continuity and loyalty,” Knights athletic director Tim Acors said were factors in Reid’s favor. “He bided his time, he did everything right, and the kids love him. He was the right fit.”
Under Reid, the Knights are expected to continue to operate from the run-heavy Wing-T formation that they used under both Jack and Tim Coleman, who won three state titles at Spotsylvania in the 1990s.
Ludden and Reid have filled two of the three head coaching vacancies at Spotsylvania County schools. Riverbend is still seeking a successor for Nathan Yates, who stepped down after five seasons.
