When you walk into Elder High School’s locker room, you’ll see four words printed across shirts, signs, and banners: Are You Elder Football?
For head coach Doug Ramsey, those four words define more than a slogan. They represent a standard — one that touches every part of their players’ lives.
“It’s a reminder of doing the little things that matter in life, not just on the football field,” Ramsey said. “How you treat your teachers, how you treat each other, how you treat your classmates — that’s what being Elder Football means.”
A Brotherhood That Extends Beyond the Game
Ramsey’s program is built on connection. Elder isn’t just a football team; it’s a family within a family. The Cincinnati powerhouse has long been known for its loyalty — players who stay, coaches who return, and alumni who come back to give more. Many of Ramsey’s assistants are former Elder players who know the standard because they lived it.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is that guys want to come back” he said. “They had such an enjoyable experience that they want to coach and give back. They know the expectations, and they know what the program’s about.”
That continuity has created a self-sustaining culture — where accountability doesn’t flow just from the top down. Players challenge and support each other. They don’t need to be told what’s acceptable; they’ve seen it modeled for years.
Standards That Travel — From the Classroom to the Weight Room
“Are You Elder Football?” isn’t about wins and losses. It’s about how players approach everything. Ramsey and his staff teach it from the offseason forward: show up, compete, and give your best effort every day.
Elder’s athletes take that to heart. Even multi-sport players find time to train during basketball or baseball season. Ramsey credits their consistency and attention to detail as competitive advantages.
“We might not have the 4.4 guys,” he said, “but our kids pay attention to details and do things the right way all the time. When you know what you’re doing and play as hard as you can, good teams become great.”
That mindset has fueled a tradition of blue-collar football — one that is characterized by toughness, discipline, and a team-oriented approach. It’s why opponents schedule Elder and why beating the Panthers still means something in Ohio.
A Standard That Sustains
In an age where players and coaches often chase the next big thing, Ramsey’s philosophy is about anchoring to something lasting. The legacy at Elder isn’t pressure — it’s pride.
“You come here to be a part of what people before you have done” Ramsey said. “You come here to play in this stadium, to carry on that tradition. That’s what excites our kids.”
It’s why Elder football remains one of the most respected names in the Midwest — not just for how they play, but for who they are. The question on every shirt still echoes:
Are you Elder Football?
Related:
Modern Football Technology and Innovation in QB Development- Keith Grabowski
Elevate your game with Modern Football Technology!
Modern Football Technology helps identify patterns and unlock hidden insights with real-time self scout and opponent tendencies while eliminating strenuous hours of manual data entry.
Book Your Demo with Modern Football:
Podcast transcript
Keith Grabowski (00:02)
We’re back for week six of our National Coach of the Week series presented by Modern Football Technology and joining us this week, we’re in Ohio and Doug Ramsey, the head coach at Cincinnati Elder. They had a big win over one of their rivals, Archbishop Mueller here to continue on the season undefeated. And it’s always a big game there in Southern Ohio. So coach, I want to congratulate you and your staff on the recognition this week.
Doug Ramsey (00:32)
Well, thank you, Keith. I appreciate it.
Keith Grabowski (00:35)
Coach, I want to make sure you have the opportunity to recognize the collective effort, talk about your team a little bit and your coaching staff, especially in regards to the preparation for this week and what’s been a great season so far.
Doug Ramsey (00:48)
Well, think that’s I think, you know, with my staff that I have here, I’ve got guys who’ve been around here for a long time. You know, there’s offensively, I think I’ve got some some really good offensive line coaches and Pat Good and and Craig James, guys that have been been with us since since the very beginning. I’ve been a head coach now for 29 years. You know, this guy’s been part of the program and, you know, defensively.
Got a guy, well, and I want to say offensively to my son, Peyton Ramsey, who is kind of taken over as the passing game coordinator. He’s done a really good job with that. And so I got a little bit of young blood in there with us old guys. And then defensively, Jay Roden has kind of taken over last couple of years and done a really nice job with our defense. Again, he’s-
Probably younger staff on the defensive side of the ball. Again, a lot of guys who played here, Pat McAtee who coaches the linebackers and Brandon Finke, a DB coach. Those guys have been around for a long, long time. so we’ve got a good mix, I think, of young and old guys who played here. A few guys who’ve been outside, guys who played some college football. So a lot of different people to share ideas.
Keith Grabowski (02:02)
Yeah, it’s always good when you can get that input. And I think that just that diverse age range, getting some of those younger guys in along with ⁓ us older guys always makes a difference. They know the new ways to connect with players and all the things that they’re into that sometimes we shake our head at. obviously everybody, just like on a team has an important role when you look at ⁓ the different members of your coaching staff.
Doug Ramsey (02:26)
Oh yeah, definitely. And I think the other part of that having young guys around is the energy. You know, they bring a lot of energy. I mean, I’m pushing 60, so I need some of those guys around to push me a little bit too. But it is, it’s been a lot of fun with the staff.
Keith Grabowski (02:41)
Because before we got going, you pointed to one of the things behind your successes is the accountability. And that starts not just from the top down, but you have players who have really learned the standards and they hold each other accountable as well. Talk to us a little bit about just how you’ve nurtured that effort to be able to bring that out so that it is not just the coaches holding the players accountable, that it’s really a team-wide thing.
Doug Ramsey (03:07)
Yeah, you know, I think that first of all, elders is a special place in that I think we’re unique. But the experiences that kids kids have here, it’s a true brotherhood within a school building, you know, and I think when when you take that to another level in in in a sport in a sport like football, that’s very, important in Cincinnati. It’s very, important elder high school.
You know, we talk a lot of lot of things, you with our guys about, you know, being an elder football player. And there’s a little saying on a lot of our shirts and things. This is are you elder football? You know, and again, it’s just a reminder of of doing the little things, you know, that matter in life, not just just on the football field, but in the classroom, how you treat your teachers, how you treat each other, how you treat your classmates and.
And so I think that carries over into our weight room. It carries over into our practice field where kids hold each other accountable for how hard they work. ⁓
We’re not always, we have a lot of really good high school football players. We’re not usually gifted with guys that are running for 440s and things of that nature. But we’ve had some good players, some guys who’ve had some success in college and professional ranks over the years. But what makes us special, I think, is just having that blue collared kid that believes in the program. The kids believe in each other and they push each other.
Keith Grabowski (04:34)
You mentioned that you have a lot of former players on your staff, some of those younger guys as well. I’m sure that’s big in just being able to have guys who have been there, who have lived it, who have lived their standards, the standards that you’ve set within the elder football program, that they’re able to really easily bring those players on board, whether that’s in their position groups, their units, etc.
Doug Ramsey (04:56)
Oh yeah, think it’s a, it’s to me it’s a two part thing for me. One, it’s the fact that guys want to come back here, that they had such an enjoyable experience when they played that they want to coach and give back, I think is huge. And then, then the other side, like you’re saying, where,
You know, our guys that I’ve coached, they know the expectations, they know what the program’s about, they know the importance of all the things that we do. And it’s just not coming from me, but it’s coming from everybody on the staff. And I think that’s been really, really helpful in what we try to accomplish.
Keith Grabowski (05:29)
When you look at that idea of RU Elder football, what would you say are some of the standards that you really are looking for those guys to take care of, to be accountable for, and really put the detail into?
Doug Ramsey (05:42)
I think that’s you know, so we can start with, know, the offseason program and in in being here. And when you’re here that that your effort is as good as it can be. You know we we compete with each other. We challenge each other. You know, so the offseason starting with that we have a lot of we have a lot of kids here who.
Who play multiple sports, you know, so, you know I think it kind of radiates to where those guys are still trying to find ways even though in the middle of a basketball season They’re still trying to get in the weight room They’re still trying to do all the kind of things because they know that everybody else is doing that is doing that right now You know and we get into the season and it’s just it’s just the little things I think for us in practice that are the most important that the paying attention to detail, you know ⁓ We have to do things, you know the right way we have
to just…
footwork and with the offensive linemen and all those kinds of things. That’s the stuff I think that’s most important with what we do. ⁓ I think sometimes we have an advantage over other teams because our kids pay so much attention to the details and they attempt to do the things that we’re coaching them to do all the time. And we talk about how hard we play. To be an elder football player, we’re going to be feeling. We’re going to know what we’re doing. ⁓
control. Not always have a lot of God-given ability, but you can know what you’re doing and you can give great effort all the time. You can be a great teammate. Those are the things that we try to push with this. I think when you play the game as hard as you can and you know what you’re doing, you can play 100 miles an hour, a good team can become really good and a good team can become great.
Keith Grabowski (07:30)
Goods for our listeners. I you guys have a very unique place. You already talked about the brotherhood there in your school. I think a lot of people in Ohio know what the pit is and what that’s like on game day. But for our listeners unfamiliar with it, explain that game day experience, the 12th man there, the pit.
Doug Ramsey (07:33)
We’ll
Well, Friday night was a great example of that. You know, our stadium holds about 10,000 people. had an attendance of 10,169 people at the game on Friday night and it was electric. was just, you know, our stadium is in middle of a neighborhood surrounded on one side. You got the school on the other three sides. It’s just a neighborhood. It’s a bowl setting, kind of sits down in a hole a little bit. And when you come down the steps into the stadium, you know, on a Friday night, the grills
are gone, can see the smoke, the people are filing in and it’s just a really unique setting and a lot of times our fans are into it.
I know there were people here, Zach Taylor was here at the Bengals head coach for the game and talked to people about what an unbelievable atmosphere it was for a high school football game. And some guys that were on the news station said they’ve been a lot of places and never seen anything like it. It’s just a great place to play high school football.
Keith Grabowski (08:51)
for your guys, because everything there is really close to the field too. It’s not like some of them where the stands are way back. ⁓ How do you, especially some of the guys who haven’t experienced before, haven’t been there on the field on game day, prepare those guys to be able to play in a setting like that? Is something that tight, emotional, high charge? You still want your team, especially in a game like this.
Doug Ramsey (08:56)
yeah, there’s no track around or anything. The fans are right on top of you.
Keith Grabowski (09:18)
to focus on the important things and maybe not get caught up in some of that. How do you coach them through that?
Doug Ramsey (09:23)
And that’s hard, you but I think that’s you just try to talk about. think we talked about that quite a bit last week. Just, ⁓ you know, in some ways, it’s just another game, you know, and you can’t get too high, too emotional. And if something bad happens, you can’t you can’t get too low with it. It’s it’s and I think one of the things with our schedule, I think our schedule kind of allows us to to learn how to do that. We play a lot of really good football teams, you know, and we play a lot of teams that know how to win.
And I think our guys learn about that over the years. We talk about to our freshmen, it’s really good sometimes when our freshmen lose a game and you’ll see the other team underneath the scoreboard with the score. They’re all taking pictures of they beat Aldrin. Just understand that.
People want to beat you not because of what you’ve done, but people before you have done. And what it means for other people to be able to beat elder high school, especially at the pit. ⁓ You come to an understanding that that’s just part of the deal here. ⁓ People want to come in here. We’ve got a game this week playing a team from Northern Kentucky in Highlands and they beat our freshmen a couple years ago and.
We get a phone call and say, hey, you guys interested in playing? And which is sure, so we got another team that wants to come in here and try to knock us off the ranks of the unbeaten. But that’s kind of the way that things go for us.
Keith Grabowski (10:56)
How big is it to have something like that, that legacy that, you know, I think that carries you a long way too. Obviously it does put a lot of pressure on from the past, but at the same time, ⁓ boy, it’s something that can carry a program. It certainly helps get kids to the school. I think, you know, especially when you look at everything going on out there in the college world, certainly is filtering down to the high school world to be able to say,
There’s a legacy here. This is an important thing to be a part of to get those guys to see like, it’s not about the grass is greener here or there. Kids these days, I think, are learning to make moves quickly away from things that are tough. So how do you harness that, I guess, to continue to perform on that level and have those players stick with your program?
Doug Ramsey (11:43)
Well, I think when we talk about time, this is why you come here. You you come here to be a part of that. You come here to be a part of what people have done before you. You’ve come here to play in this stadium. have an unbelievable weight room to work out in. We play a great schedule. You get a chance to play. You’re going to play against guys that you’re going to see on Saturdays and you’re going to play against guys that you’re going to see on Sunday, someday. And I think when you, when you talk about all those kinds of things and, and ⁓
I think it excites our kids to be a part of that.
Keith Grabowski (12:19)
Coach, I appreciate you taking time here during a busy week, another big game for you coming up as always with Elder, a big game every week. So I wish you and your staff the best of luck here the rest of the season and as you head into the playoffs just a few weeks down the road.
Doug Ramsey (12:35)
Yep, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.