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| Mansfield High football coach Mike Redding steps into The Owner's Box. |
My guest for the 22nd episode of my ongoing experiment in audio discourse is someone I've wanted to be part of the podcasts since they began in October -- Mike Redding, the highly successful head football coach at Mansfield High School, who's preparing for his 33rd season at the helm of the Green Hornets if the coronavirus lets us return to the fields in the fall.
Redding, whose Hornets won a state Division 2 title to cap off an 11-1 season last fall, was also the long-time girls' basketball coach at MHS, giving that job up after 22 seasons in which his teams averaged 14 wins a year. The reason why he's saying goodbye to the hardcourt? He's trading that job and his teaching job to become Mansfield's new athletic director following Joe Russo's retirement.
Don't worry, football fans. He'll still be coaching that team. The Hockomock's Kelley-Rex Division isn't getting off that easily.
We chat about some of the happier memories of his two coaching posts and his excitement over taking on the new challenge of running the entire show. But also remember, it's under very unusual circumstances that he'll be taking over as the AD. Mansfield High sports are in a state of lockdown, as are the programs at every other Massachusetts school, and Redding will have to find a way to reboot the entire sports program while preparing for another football season as defending state champions -- and that's assuming that the COVID-19 crisis will have subsided sufficiently by that time.
In addition to our 54 minutes of chat, I also offer a remembrance of Ed "E.B." Cunningham, who coached the Hornet football team when I was in high school a half-century ago. He passed late last month at the age of 88, and I wanted to make note of the role he played in helping me hit the ground running with a career as a sports journalist.
Please listen, and enjoy.
3 comments:
I enjoyed your podcast featuring your interview with Mike Redding and comments regarding EB. While my connection with Mansfield has been limited to family visits since 1974, it is nice to hear about MHS and the town. I was saddened to hear of EB’s death. He was the head coach of all of the football teams that I played on, except for the eighth grade team. Until my senior year, those teams were quite successful. I can say that EB did not treat us any differently during that winless season than during the good times and it had to be a more trying time for him than for us players.. I wish I had run into him as an adult.
Hey, Kevin! I'm pretty sure that E.B. made it to one of the Mansfield High School Sports Hall of Fame banquets on the Thanksgiving weekend a few years back, but unfortunately it was one I could not attend. Thanks for listening, and I hope you are well.
I suspect EB went to the HOF banquet during which Colin Caldwell and Ralph Topham, who were All Hockomock league players on the 1968 Championship team along with Bob Sousa, were inducted. I believe that had Bob Sousa played in all of the games that season, the deep and talented 1968 team would have been undefeated. Sadly, that success led some of us, including EB, to believe the 1969 team would be very competitive. That view had been bolstered by the fact that we juniors on the 1968 team had also played on eight grade and freshmen teams that never lost. What a shock it must have been for EB to coach a team that didn’t win any games following a championship season. I hope he found comfort In that he got us to play hard and two of us (Lou Certuse and I ) were All Hockomock selections.
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