By John Goolsby, Prep Sports Editor
IRONDALE – Shades Valley’s Rueben Nelson stepped down from his positions as head football coach and athletic director yesterday.
“I let the kids know I stepped down as head coach and athletics director,” Nelson said. “I thank God for giving me the greatest job for the past 26 years…football coach.”
Nelson, 15-22, over the last four years at Valley, became head coach in the spring of 2021 after a nine-year run at Ramsay, where he compiled a 74-36 record and won the 2016 6A state title.
While the Mounties did not make the playoffs under Nelson, he guided Shades Valley to its first winning season in 2022, marking the Mounties’ first winning record in five years.
Nelson first became a head coach in 2005 at his alma mater, Midfield, and led the Patriots to a 40-28 record and five straight playoff appearances.
The 2016 6A Coach of the Year became Ramsay’s head coach in 2011 and, in 2012, fielded the Rams’ first team since 1976. Five years later, Nelson delivered the school its first state title.
Nelson concludes his coaching career with a 129-86 overall record spanning 19 years, making him one of the ten winningest active coaches in 6A. He has also won 17 playoff games.
The twenty-third Mountie head coach will be tasked with resurrecting a once proud football program that has gone 95-164, suffered through 18 losing seasons, and made only six playoff appearances since 2000.
Shades Valley won its last region title in 1999. In the 17 years from 1983 to 1999, the Mounties claimed 11 region titles, made 14 playoff appearances, were nationally ranked and played in four semi-final and two state championship games.
The first Valley team took the field in 1921 (1921-1948 as Shades Cababa), and the Mounties were one of four schools that played in the first-ever AHSAA playoff semi-final games in 1966.
