Taking the game to Spain
ZELIENOPLE — Coming out of high school, Mark Ridgley just wanted to stay around football.
Years later, the Zelienople resident is helping to grow the game. He will be an assistant coach for the Madrid Bravos, an expansion team in the European League of Football, this spring.
Ridgley, 38, graduated from New Brighton High School, where he played football for the Lions.
“I knew my playing career was over at that point,” he said. “I wasn’t good enough to play in college.
“But I wasn’t ready to leave the game.”
Ridgley attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he joined the equipment staff with the Panthers football team. He later served as a graduate assistant coach at Pitt.
After a couple of coaching stops — two years as defensive line coach at Central Michigan University and 12 years in different roles with the NFL’s San Diego Chargers — Ridgley found himself out of football.
“The entire Chargers coaching staff was let go in 2020,” he said. “My wife and I relocated to Florida and I was trying to reinvent myself, working in investments and real estate.
“But I missed coaching.”
He and his family moved to Zelienople to be closer to extended family. Ridgley wound up doing some youth sports camps for friend Matt Diesel, owner of the Diesel Sports Complex in Cranberry Township.
“It was there that the desire to coach again really hit me,” Ridgley said. “I enjoyed working those camps so much.”
Rip Scherer, whose father coached football at Moon High School, was on the San Diego Chargers staff with Ridgley for a couple of years and the two became friends.
Shortly after Scherer was named head coach of the Madrid football franchise, he contacted Ridgley to offer him an opportunity to join his staff.
“There are only so many coaching jobs in professional football and there’s plenty of people who are qualified,” Ridgley said. “It often comes down to who you’ve worked with, who you know, who you have networked with.”
Ridgley with his wife, Casey — an elementary school teacher in the Seneca Valley district — about his possibility of coaching in Spain and “she was on board with it.”
The 17-team European League of Football begins play in May and runs through the summer. The league plays a 12-game schedule over a 14-week period.
Six teams make the playoffs. Teams have 53-playe rosters and 12-man practice squads.
Forty three players must be home-grown, six can come from other European countrioes, four from anyplace in the world.
“Those four usually come from America,” Ridgley said. “There is such a wealth of football players here. There’s many arena leagues still going on and the USFL and XFL recently merged (forming the United Football League).
“Our team is in the toughest division. The defending league champion Rhine Fire is in our division, other German teams and Paris.”
The European League of Football has no player draft nor an expansion draft. The league’ general rules mirror the NFL.
“It’s up to us to build our own team,” Ridgley said. “Football is growing quickly in other countries and I believe this league represents the next big growth of the game.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be doing this — you never know in professional football — but I’m excited to be a part of this.”
Ridgley plans to head to Madrid in April for a preseason camp. His wife and daughters will join him there when school lets out. The season will be over in August.
“Passing on knowledge, helping to make better players and better people, that’s the thrill of coaching for me,” Ridgley said. “This is a challenge I’m looking forward to.”
