Jennifer Hoffer – Sports Editor
After 29 years of coaching the owls football program, Head Coach, Rich Cavanaugh has announced his retirement. Over those 29 years, Cavanaugh has scrounged up 170 wins and recorded 18 winning seasons. He also helped lead the Owls to four NCAA II playoff appearances.
If it’s not his success as a head coach at Southern that’s left a legacy, it the impact he’s has on his players.
For senior tailback, Vaughn Magee, playing and being coached by Cavanaugh has been a privilege and honor.
“He was like a father figure away from home,” Magee said. “He was really hard on me for most of my years playing. Deep down inside he was and is a really good guy, but on the field he was a hard ass on all of us. For our benefit to always get better.”
Cavanaugh coached 17 All-American players, and a handful of other players that when on to achieve numerous goals while playing under him. Cavanaugh also coached three players that eventually went on to play at the professional level.
Not only has Cavanaugh touched the hearts and reached out to players for on the field purposes, Magee said, but he’s also impacted my life personally.
“The biggest thing he taught me was that you should always give your all in the field and in the classroom because college flies by quickly and you should make the best of it,” Magee said. “I really learned how to carry myself because of him. I learned how to not get involved with little problems because it really does reflect the type of person that you are and the type of person that you become.”
Magee said he’ll miss Cavanaugh’s honesty and humor the most.
“One day he was doing push-ups on the football field and he lets the team talk trash to him while he was doing it,” Magee said. “It’s that humor that I’m really going to miss.”
Over the past four years, Magee said that Cavanaugh has improved his game immensely.
“He made me practice as if I was my last practice ever,” Magee said. “He really helped me learn and understand the game better.”
But no only has Cavanaugh help shape Magee into a better player, but Magee said he helped shape him into a better man.
“Cav really helped mold me into a respectful young man,” Magee said. “He helped me as I made my way through my years in the classroom and on the field, and I am extremely grateful for that.”
With Cavanaugh leaving, Magee said the team will have to incorporate new practice routines, a new mindset and will be in a different environment when the new coach comes in.
“It’s going to be a really different program now that he’s gone,” Magee said. “He gets all the players hyped before the games and during the week. And he always, always left us with words of wisdom at the end of the week.”
As for the team’s future and the players coming up, Magee said they are going to be successful. There is a lot of young and old talent that is going being combined next year, Magee said.
“The teams going to adjust well to a new coach,” Magee said. “because there is good talent there. Especially going into next season there are a lot of three-year starters that are going in to their senior year and will impact the team’s success immensely. These guys will keep the team focused with whoever the new coach is. “
Cavanaugh was one to take a team that had lost 22 straight games, and have come in season in and out bringing losing teams to winning teams.
“I think that just shows you that he has a lot of pride deep down within himself,” Magee said. “He never gives up on his players and coaches no matter what.”
