Druid Hills’ Coach Jim Rakestraw has been named DeKalb’s Coach of the Year by the DeKalb Touchdown Club, and longtime DeKalb sports personality Calvin Ramsey has received the prestigious Gene Goff Memorial Award for his contribution to football.
Rakestraw and Ramsey were honored at the DeKalb Touchdown Club’s annual jamboree, held Tuesday night at the Decatur Federal Sky Room.
Also named at the banquet were Southwest DeKalb’s Gregory Graves as Offensive Player of the Year, and Towers’ David Barron, who was honored as Defensive Player of the Year by the Touchdown Club.
Special recognition awards were also presented to Henderson Coach Terry Sparks, Clarkston’s head coach Jack Miller, Lakeside’s Wayman Creel, Tucker’s Jack Wilks, and Dwight Martin, who served as the first president of the Touchdown Club.
Rakestraw, 33, came to DeKalb County in January 1965 after a two-year stint in the U.S. Army. First assigned to Cross Keys in a teaching position, Rakestraw moved to Druid Hills in 1966 as an assistant football and basketball coach.
A graduate of West Fulton (1958) and Presbyterian College (1962), Rakestraw took over the head coaching position at Druid Hills in the spring of 1969 when Crawford Kennedy moved on to Avondale.
Rakestraw, who is well known also for his teaching abilities in mathematics, enjoyed his first winning season in 1973, as the Atlanta native guided the Druids to an almost perfect 9-1 season.
It was the best record in football at Druid Hills since 1956 when that Red Devil team went to the state finals to lose to Valdosta.
Ramsey, who joined the DeKalb County coaching ranks in 1951, served 19 years as head coach at Avondale High School. A native of Birmingham, Ala., Ramsey’s first coaching job was at Hewitt High School in Trussville, Alabama.
After his arrival at Avondale in 1951, Ramsey and his cohorts there started to build one of the most successful athletic programs in Georgia history. Avondale, particularly in the late fifties and early sixties, most always represented North Georgia in the state AAA playoffs during Ramsey’s tenure at the DeKalb school.
Ramsey, 48, and a graduate of Mississippi State, retired from coaching in 1970 to accept a supervisory position with the DeKalb County School System. He currently serves as one of three deputy directors for athletics in DeKalb County.
Twenty-two other players were honored as members of the Touchdown Club’s Team of the Year.
