By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
By the time Chris Ridley finished his first book on his high school football coach, Baldwin legend Merle Venable, his book on another one of his coaching idols, Washburn Rural's Ron Bowen, was already in the works.
Buoyed by the success of "Venable: Part Legend, All American,'' which was released last fall, Ridley almost immediately turned his focus to writing "Never Seen A Finer Day,'' which chronicles the long coaching career of Bowen, who compiled a record of 156-73 in 23 seasons as Rural’s head football coach with three Class 5A state championships in the 1980s and a 6A runner-up finish.
Ron Bowen, the subject of the biography "Never Seen a Finer Day,'' guided Washburn Rural to three Class 5A state football championships and a runner-up finish in 6A during his 23-year tenure at the school. [Submitted]
Longtime Washburn Rural football assistant and former Rural athletic director Chris Ridley is the author of "Never Seen A Finer Day,'' a biography on former Junior Blues football coach Ron Bowen. [Submitted]
"Never Seen A Finer Day'' is expected to be available next month and Ridley is already taking orders for the book, which is being published by Baldwin's Imperium Publishing.
"I put out details last Thursday on Facebook and I've had about 190 people that have already paid up front,'' Ridley told TopSports.news Monday.
Ridley worked closely with Bowen during the bulk of his long tenure at Washburn Rural, first as a student teacher and then as the Junior Blues' freshman coach and a varsity assistant before serving as Rural's athletic director in Bowen's final years before he retired.
"It was kind of full circle because I knew Merle as a kid, but then Ron was more llke a mentor and somebody I could learn from and follow, and of course Ray Glaze as well.'' said the 64-year-old Ridley, who has retired from Rural but continues to coach freshman football. "I learned a heck of a lot of football from those guys, and a lot about how to deal with kids, which I think Ron was a master.
"It's equally impressive to me that all the football boys can't say enough good things about him, but then there's non-football kids, non-athletes and girls that say the same thing.''
Ridley said the way his self-published book on Venable, who passed away in 2012, was received gave him the confidence to push forward with his book on Bowen.
"I had somebody tell me that if you sell 100 or 150 books that you self-pubish, you've probably done really well and I think I'm up to about 700, so that's pretty good sales and I'm still selling them,'' Ridley said. "I was not expecting that at all. I would have hoped I could have wrote a book, but it's like if you've never done it you just don't know. Especially self-publishing, that was interesting.
''But it encouraged me to make sure to do this one because I figured that the same local flavor was present, with all the people that had been associated with Rural and Topeka sports, I thought a lot of people would want that book.''
Ridley's book on Bowen, a member of Kansas State High School Activities Association and Topeka Shawnee County Sports Hall of Fames, covers his entire coaching career, including stops at Elkhart, Carbondale, Leon, Udall and Valley Center before Bowen took over at Rural in 1975.
"There's a little bit in the book about all those places and what he did,'' Ridley said. "He started some of those wrestling programs.''
Ridley spent hours gathering information for the book in meetings with Ron and his wife, Mary Lou, at their farm in Effingham. Mary Lou Bowen was a longtime journalism teacher at Rural and joined her husband in the school's Hall of Fame earlier this year.
"I started going up there for noon meals and Mary Lou always cooked, but she sat in as well, and she filled in a lot of the details,'' Ridley said. "I had her read it, mostly for accuracy, but she helped me with some of the editing kind of things, too.''
Ron Bowen is not necessarily known as being a big talker, particularly when it comes to talking about himself, but Ridley said he was very helpful in putting the book together.
"He opened up, and as a matter of fact, he even made a couple of suggestions,'' Ridley said.
Ridley also spent a great deal of time going through old Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper accounts of Washburn Rural's games.
"I went season by season, so a lot of it was game summaries,'' Ridley said. "You can re-live each year if you want to.''
Bowen was known as a strict disciplinarian and Ridley said that it was apparent in interviewing several former Rural players that they still have unwavering respect for their coach and the way he did things and what was expected of them. Washburn Rural's football stadium is named Bowen-Glaze Stadium in honor of Bowen and Glaze, his longtime assistant coach.
"There's some excellent player perspectives and stories,'' Ridley said. "Some of the guys that I talked to and that I quoted in the book, would say, 'Well, I don't know if you want to put this in there or not,' and I said, 'Do you think he's going to come back and hold a special practice for you?' ''
With book No. 2 off to the publisher, Ridley is already pondering the possibility of another book in his future.
"I started this one right about the time (the Venable book) came out, so this will be the second book in a year, which is kind of fun to think about,'' Ridley said.
"I've got a few ideas, let's put it that way, and a couple of them that I've probably got a start on. My publisher wants me to do another one, and it may not even be a sports book. I may even switch gears.''
Ridley is requesting pre-orders and payments for "Never Seen A Finer Day'' to determine how many copies to order from the publisher. To order a book go to the link: https://forms.gle/niDbhJcrWSTLxQdu9.
