Greg Ruffin Officially Introduced As Edward Waters Tigers Head Football Coach

JACKSONVILLE, Florida -- In front of a crowd filled with supporters, alumni, members of the local media, and his first crop of football players, Greg Ruffin was officially introduced as the 14th head football coach in the history of the Edward Waters football program during a press conference on Thursday morning at the Adams-Jenkins Community Sports & Music Center.

Ruffin comes to Edward Waters from Bethune-Cookman University of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), where he spent this past season (2017) as Tight Ends Coach. Prior to his time at BCU, he spent one season as head coach at Texas College in 2016.

Ruffin's experience in building programs from the ground up made him the right choice to lead the Tiger football program as he was named head coach at Paine College in the school's resurgence of football in 2013, after the program was dormant for more than 50 years. At 29 years old, Ruffin was also selected as head football coach at Shaw University in 2002 where he revived that program after a 23-year hiatus, guiding the Bears to a 7-3 record in his lone season in Raleigh, N. C.

During Thursday's press conference, Ruffin emphasized the importance of finding "O. K. G.'s" or "Our Kind of Guys" to help the program get back to the level of success it saw in the 50's & 60's when it was one of the most feared programs in all of Black College Football.

"We want to tell people what our message is and what our core values are," said Ruffin. "We don't want kids coming here and being surprised. This is what we are. We want kids to embrace that and once they do, they will understand that we will take off." Ruffin also stated that "We're gonna take this program and enhance it in order to move it forward. This is the right place for me and I look forward to the challenge of taking this program to the next level."

Ruffin also spoke of his time as a player at his alma mater, Lane College and about how he was a part of the turnaround of that program. At Lane in 1989, they hadn't won a game in six years. They lost 103-0 to Central State when they had Coach Billy Joe and had to stop the game in the third quarter. When I left in 1995 as a senior, we went 9-1 and beat North Carolina A&T with just nine scholarships." Ruffin reiterated the point that "Great things can and will happen here."

Ruffin addressed his players in a meeting following the press conference and told them the importance of taking pride and ownership in their football program. "At the end of the day gentlemen, I want you to be proud of where you are and represent this program to the utmost." Ruffin said during the meeting. "If we do that and we pay attention to the little things, success will come after that."

Following the holiday break, Ruffin will begin to put together his coachin
g staff and immediately start recruiting for the 2018 season as well as installing his offseason plan in order to be prepared for spring football practice.

EDWARD WATERS COLLEGE SPORTS INFORMATION