By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Ravenwood High School's new football coach Joe Rietveld went to work officially with the Raptors team and his new staff Monday after moving into the area over the weekend.

Rietveld has named Daniel Keel, who formerly coached at Battle Ground Academy and Davidson Academy, as his defensive coordinator. New RHS baseball coach Teddy Craig, just hired from Davidson Academy, will also help coach freshman football.

Defensive backs coach Jack Jakobic joins the Raptors staff with experience coaching at the college level with Gardner-Webb and Carson-Newman.

Ravenwood new coach Joe Reitveld

In assembling his new staff, Rietveld has also added Alex Trakas from Oakland and first-year coach Danny Borne both as receivers coaches.

Remaining on board from Ravenwood are Paul Neil (linebackers), Ryan Smith (D-line), Wade Privett (O-line) and Jason Pope (freshmen). The school is still looking for another assistant coach for the frosh squad.

Rietveld will call the plays on offense and also coach the quarterbacks and running backs.

"Moving was no fun -- one of the few times I have felt overwhelmed and stressed," said Rietveld, whose family of four relocated from Indiana. "I would much rather be coaching players than packing boxes.

"I am happy to be semi-settled and look forward to the school year and football season."

The new coach is installing the offense and defense over eight days the next two weeks during workouts allowed in shorts. The Raptors already are having early-morning practices to help escape the heat, plus monitored the heat index and also had extra water breaks Monday.

Rietveld said his goals for the varsity for July are to review schemes from the spring and divide into offensive or defensive positions. He also will introduce basic offensive and defensive schemes to the freshmen as well as make position placement.            

For both varsity and freshmen, he wants to "start building a positive relationships based on trust and communication" in these three weeks leading up to the beginning of practice in pads.

Aug. 1 is the first day Tennessee high school football teams are allowed to put on pads, leaving just two weeks this year before many schools' opening night on what is called Week 0. Last year there was a three-week window.

However, Ravenwood has its open date that first week and doesn't kick off the season until Friday, Aug. 26, at Battle Ground Academy. That gives the Raptors' third coach in four seasons a little more time to play catch-up.

"The extra week is very beneficial for the coaches to evaluate the players and for the players to become comfortable in the system so they can react and make plays in Week 1," Rietveld said.