The Ramsay High School football team has added former Alabama running back Trent Richardson to their coaching staff, they announced Friday morning on social media.

https://twitter.com/RamsayFootball/status/1781348902249103749

Richardson joins a Rams program that has ranked among the state’s elite in recent years. The Birmingham high school boasts a 44-11 record since 2020 and claimed a class 5A state title in 2022; they nearly repeated as champions in 2023, but lost to Gulf Shores in the state final.

Despite Ramsay’s sustained success, the Rams suffered a wave of coaching departures after the conclusion of last season, a development head coach Ronnie Jackson described as “shocking.” Richardson, who will serve as the team’s running backs coach, will join seven other new staffers on the Rams’ sideline.

“Never in my life, never have I seen that before,” Jackson told AL.com. “I was shocked because who leaves after we won it and then the next year we lost in the state championship?”

Richardson, whose decorated Alabama career lasted from 2009 to 2011, was selected by the Cleveland Browns with the third overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. He spent four years in the NFL, playing for four teams before eventually signing with the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. Since 2019, Richardson has appeared for the Birmingham Iron of the now-defunct AAF and the Mexican team Caudillos de Chihuahua.

This will be the coaching debut of Richardson, who says he has been getting coaching offers for “several years.”

“Trent was like it’s a good thing he was offered because he’s been getting offers for the last four or five years and the only reason he hasn’t been taking it is because his daughters were graduating and he wanted to be there for his kids,” Jackson said.

Charles Vaughan is a contributing writer for Yellowhammer News.