Bruce Ransom appointed head football coach for Bucktail High
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RENOVO -- With the first full-week of practice already underway, the Bucktail Bucks football program finally has a new head coach leading the program.
On Thursday night the Keystone Central School District Board of directors approved hiring Bruce Ransom to the role, marking the return of a program favorite and igniting a case of Bucks Fever along with the announcement.
Kevin Ransom had coached the varsity program for the previous two years but a change in his full-time profession led to an unexpected late vacancy for the program. With the return of the eldest brother to the helm, the atmosphere swiftly changed from uncertainty to excitement on the Bucktail campus.
"What the school needs right now is a Bruce Ransom," said newly hired Co-Head Junior High Coach Dan Heiser, who was also hired last night along with Co-Head Coach Ryan Graw for the younger Bucktail team.
"I've said it before, Bruce gets our kids to do things that they really shouldn't be able to do. He takes a 130 pound lineman and convinces him that he can block a 210 pound defensive tackle and it works," Heiser said of Ransom. "He encourages the kids far greater than the football field, as good of a junior high program as we have had recently (with Ransom as coach), trust me, the first thing Bruce is going to point out to you is how nearly all were on the honor roll or high honor roll, then he'll talk about how well they played last night."
This season will mark the 30th that Ransom will have been on a Bucktail sideline.
After being hired during a parking lot interview by fellow beloved legend Coach Bob Young in 1994, Ransom went from junior high to varsity head coach positions before retiring, only to repeat the cycle again. He returned to the junior high a few years ago and is now undertaking the varsity position once again.
In total, he has coached junior high for 13 years and varsity 16 heading into the 2026 season.
"We have good kids, we have good parents, we have a great booster club, truthfully it's a very good group," said Ransom of his decision to come back. It's well known that many involved in Bucktail athletics had been asking him to do so.
"There's an old culture at Bucktail, we might get beat but we never quit, we're going to start to feel that again," Ransom said.
A rallying cry for years now at Bucktail has been that they're the smallest public school to field a football team.
Hesier said that, as word of Ransom being the selected candidate grew on social media -- though it wasn't official until Thursday night's board meeting -- the effect was immediate.
"We had been doing grass drills with at least 18 kids, up to around 25, when word got out Bruce was really coming back. We had 32 here on Tuesday, that's about one third of the male population in our school," he offered of the momentum.
"Everyone has a chance to help people in life/ Bruce's path happens to be through football. These players will become better people having played for him," Heiser continued. "These kids know they are going to be encouraged, they will be pulled aside and asked how things are going in their lives and they certainly know they will be showing Bruce their grades."
The Bucktail coaching staff will now consist of Ransom as the head varsity coach with assistants David Pentz, Jason Ditty and Rob Getz as a volunteer. Junior high co-head coaches will be Dan Hesier and Ryan Graw. Getz is approved to be an assistant on the junior high level as well should that program need help at any given time.