One Nation, Under God

New Mavs coach is a very familiar face

A familiar face has been seen on the North Country Maverick sideline this season as the team welcomed former Hinsdale Lady Raider Coach Ralph Ellsworth as their newest head coach for the 2018-19 season.

The team is currently on Winter Break and holds a 4-1 record. The team will see their first action of 2019 on Thursday, January 3, as the team will travel to Dodson to take on the Dodson Coyotes.

Ellsworth, who ranches in Hinsdale with his wife Terri, will enter this season after a four-year hiatus due to health reasons.

"I had cancer in 2015, and I have been recovering from that the last couple of years," Coach Ellsworth said. "So I really wasn't interested in coaching much. But I have kind of healed up pretty decent and when (former Maverick Coach Steven Mayfield) turned in his resignation, I saw that the team had some good kids and so I threw my name in the hat."

Ellsworth, a 1972 graduate at Hinsdale High, is now free of renal cell cancer, also known as kidney cancer, but to keep the possibility of any future sickness at bay, Ellsworth still takes smaller doses of chemo.

"I had it three different times and they finally had to give me the chemo to get rid of it," Coach Ellsworth said. "So, I don't have cancer anymore but I do take a maintenance dose to make sure it doesn't come back."

Though he is known for taking the Lady Raiders to state four times in the last decade, he coached the Raiders boys' varsity team from 1996 to 2001. His first stint with the Lady Raiders was for three years from 1996 to 1998.

He started coaching the Lady Raiders again in 2006, leading the Lady Raiders to a State C appearance in 2008, again in 2009 and a State C runner-up finish in 2014. Then came the first year of the Maverick (Saco-Whitewater-Hinsdale) cooperative, and Coach Ellsworth's battle with cancer.

Until the beginning of the season, Coach Ellsworth hadn't really had the chance to follow the team closely.

"I had been pretty unattached the last four years, but I did watch them play a little bit in the tournaments last year," Ellsworth said. "I know who most of those kids are, but I don't know too much about them as a team."

Ellsworth has been working with Hinsdale Schools since he graduated in 72'. He was even with the team as a bus driver and statistician in 1988 when the Raiders, led by Brad Henderson, won the State Title.

"That was a very fun experience, so I have always had a keen interest in staying involved since then," Coach Ellsworth said. "I was always with the program and depending on the coach, I was an assistant coach."

Coach Ellsworth runs a ball control offense, which also relies on a stingy defense.

"I have my own system that I have created over the years and I stick to it," Coach Ellsworth said. "It involves being in control and hopefully making the defense play longer than you. Almost everyone in the area is familiar with my system."

 

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