Lofty expectations haven't diminished for Riverdale football coach

"The pressure comes from, 'Are we ready?' or 'Have we taught the kids?' or 'Will we play hard?' — that kind of thing. And I think any coach that plays out of fear of pressure of losing or winning is never going to be very good anyway."

Aydelott's approach, by all means, has enabled him and his teams to be "good."

Utilizing the same wing-T attack Riverdale will run Friday night at Oakland in the 35th Battle of the 'Boro, Aydelott won more than 100 games in 12 seasons at Nashville's Hillsboro High School. From 2000-05, the Burros dominated Class 4A with a 74-10 record and three state finals appearances. They beat Morristown West, 21-0, in the 2003 state championship game.

"Ron is an excellent football coach," said Terry Hemontoler, the Warriors' offensive coordinator who spent eight years with Aydelott at Hillsboro. "He's a good football mind, he's well-prepared, he's well-organized."

A 35-year coaching veteran, Hemontoler is Aydelott's right-hand man on the Riverdale staff. Leaving Hillsboro for Murfreesboro three years ago with Aydelott, though, was no easy move.

"I took a huge cut in pay to come here," Hemontoler said. "He's the only reason I'd do that."

There are plenty of others in Aydelott's corner. Most players speak of him as a disciplinarian devoted to teaching.

"He's stepped up to the plate as far as carrying the Riverdale tradition," senior linebacker/fullback Aaron Ebalaroza said.

Riverdale principal Tom Nolan calls Aydelott a "first-class act" and a "player's coach."

"I have 100 percent confidence in coach Ron Aydelott," Nolan said. "He's doing an outstanding job with our kids."

For Aydelott to convince the Warrior fans of his abilities, however, he knows he must do what Riverdale's former coach managed to do four times: Win a state title. And while Aydelott is still very cognizant of the man who preceded him, he does not wrestle with any notions of being the next Gary Rankin.

"It's still big shoes to fill, and I'll say this: I'll never fill his shoes," Aydelott said. " ... But it's been a good place for me. I love the people I work with here. I can't appease everybody because, first of all, we haven't won a state championship. That's the only thing that will appease them, and that's OK with me. At Hillsboro High School, we've done that, too. And they're right: That's the only thing that will appease you."

In addition to the tradition Ebalaroza mentioned, Aydelott has managed to uphold one of Rankin's greatest regular season accomplishments — the streak. The 84 straight region/district wins — and 17 consecutive region/district championships — are still intact.

Last season, the wins streak looked in jeopardy several times — especially in the Warriors' narrow wins over Smyrna and La Vergne. This year, with many juniors and first-time senior starters in the lineup, maintaining it should be as challenging as ever.

"Wins are expected at Riverdale High School," Nolan said, "but I'm also smart enough to know with the coaching background I have that there are going to be some down years.

"Is this a down year? I'm not saying that. I'm saying that they're young, but they're getting after it, and I know they're working as hard as they can."

To the players, working hard is the task at hand, but not the conversation. Talk of keeping the streak alive is their perpetual motivation.

"Every day," Ebalaroza said. "We've got an 84-game streak, so I don't want it to be my team that lets it slip by. I don't think anybody wants to let it slip by."

To Aydelott, the here-and-now is all about seeing daily improvement. Even with a young squad, that can lead to green pastures.

"This team is a project team," he said. "Not many people projected this group, when they were young, to be very good. The chance to do something special with them, it's not so much pressure as it is, 'Hey, let's see what they got.' Because kids grow up. Our first semifinal team at Hillsboro (in 2000), the senior class ... didn't win a freshman game but they went 13-1 as seniors. In 2001, the first state runner-up team had six seniors on it.

"I just don't think you read a whole lot into a class that's young. Obviously you'd like to have great classes, and that usually does translate into good things, but it doesn't mean you give up because things didn't go well when the kids were young. They grow up, they get in the weight room, they work hard, and good things happen to them."

And within the program — among the coaches and players who work together every day — that growth and that effort is really all that matters.

"We're going to put our heads down at night and feel like we did the best job we could," Aydelott said. "Some people may agree with that, some may not, but quite frankly, I don't care.

" ... I try to keep my nose in doing the job that I do and not telling people how to do theirs, and that's the code I live by."