UPDATED: Opp hires veteran Ed Rigby as head football coach (2024)

DAVID MUNDEE

With 33 years of coaching experience, including 23 as a high school head football coach with a state championship and a state runner-up on his resume, Ed Rigby feels he knows a special opportunity when he sees it.

The veteran coach feels the Opp football program is such an opportunity.

During a special called Opp City Schools Board meeting on Wednesday night, the school board approved the hiring of Rigby as the Bobcats head football coach. Rigby has guided seven high school teams over 23 years, including four in Alabama in the last 11 years. He won a state title at Elba in 2015 and also had a state runner-up team with the Tigers in 2014.

In addition to his head football role, he will also serve as Opp’s athletic director and a physical education teacher with emphasis on weight training.

“I am expecting some big things,” Rigby said in a Dothan Eagle interview Wednesday night on his cell phone while traveling with his wife, Chanda, to Mississippi for the birth of their first grandchild. “I have done this a long time, and you know when you get that vibe. I got that vibe.”

Rigby added, “Right now, Opp is going in an uptick in the players they have in the program for the next five-seven years. It is a great opportunity to take another shot at a state championship.”

Rigby replaces Matt Brunson, who resigned exactly a week ago after just one season with the Bobcats to return to his alma mater of Baker (Fla.) High School.

In taking over at Opp, Rigby slides down 32 miles down the road from his head coaching role at Luverne, where he guided the Tigers last year to a 7-4 record in his only season. He has a career record of 148-110, including 95-39 in the state of Alabama. He also has been an assistant coach at four different levels – high school, junior college, NAIA and NCAA.

Prior to the Luverne job, Rigby coached for one season at Pike Road, guiding the Patriots to a 7-5 record with a second-round state playoff appearance in 2022 after leading Eufaula for four seasons (2018-2021) and Elba for five years (2013-17).

“They finished spring with 98 kids in 9th through 12^th grade,” Rigby said of Opp. “Coach Brunson did an unbelievable job of getting kids out, having discipline and having kids involved in the weight program with some outstanding gains.

“I want to be able to build off that and bring my fiery twist to that, work with this staff and take them some place they have never been – that is a 4A state championship.”

Opp Superintendent Michael Smithart said Rigby checked all the boxes for the program.

“We were very specific in what we were looking for,” Smithart said. “We were looking for someone who had championship experience and brought the kind of value and character that we were looking for in our program. Coach Rigby fit that bill to a T.”

Both Smithart and Opp principal Matt Blake said making a quick hire was vital following Brunson’s resignation last week, though both said it was also important to have a thorough search.

“June 3 (this upcoming Monday) is the date to start the summer workout program and we felt it was vitally important to be through, but also do it quickly,” Blake said. “We wanted to get it right.

“But every day you don’t have a person leading your program is a day you are falling behind. It was important to keep some sort of normalcy for our kids and our coaching staff. To have that normalcy and to have those kids return to their routine on the day that was set for them was one of the most important things to take into consideration.”

Blake said despite the late date so close to the season opener three months away, the school system had “over 30 applicants” interested in the Opp job. In the end, Rigby was at the top of the list.

“He won a state championship in a rural city system right down the road in Elba that is very similar to Opp, and he has had a great career, so it was a great fit,” Blake said. “Ed Rigby is a really good football coach and a really good man.”

Rigby had a highly-successful tenure at Elba, leading the Tigers to a 53-12 record in his five seasons, highlighted by a Class 2A state title in 2015 and a state runner-up finish in 2014, with both teams finishing with 14-1 records. Rigby was named the Dothan Eagle Coach of the Year in both 2014 and 2015. He directed Eufaula to a 28-18 record and four straight playoff appearances.

Rigby began his coaching career in 1991 as a defensive and offensive line coach at Independence High School in Louisiana. He was line coach at Northwest Rankin (Miss.) in 1992 and was offensive coordinator and defensive line coach at Mendenhall (Miss.) in 1993 before becoming head coach at Albany (La.) in 1994. He guided Albany to a 12-9 record over two years.

Rigby then became the head coach at Loranger (La.), guiding that program to a 20-22 record from 1996-1999, highlighted by a 10-2 second-round playoff team in 1998.

After his stints at Albany and Loranger, he was offensive line coach at Tabor College in Kansas in 2010 before moving to Holmes Community College where he was the offensive coordinator and was also the school’s head coach soccer for the women’s and men’s programs.

After three years at Holmes, he became offensive coordinator at SWAC-member Jackson State University in Mississippi, a role he served for two years before taking a head coaching job at Tate High School in Pensacola, Fla. He led Tate for six seasons (2006-11), struggling to a 21-40 record.

In 2012 – the year his wife, Chanda, became the head coach of Troy University’s women’s basketball program -- he moved to the Wiregrass, becoming an assistant coach at Goshen. After one season, he was hired as Elba’s head coach and has been a head coach in Alabama ever since.

His next stop now comes at Opp, which is coming off a 4-7 season.

“I am excited that they chose me,” Rigby said. “I am excited to be a part of what they are doing.”