Spudders’ Ossie steps down after 33 years

There is still time for a community celebration.

Not that Art “Ossie” Osmundson is asking for one. In fact, he scoffed at the idea of any fanfare for him.

Sorry, Ossie, you have earned much fanfare.

Osmundson, the longtime baseball coach at Ridgefield High School, has retired from coaching.

And by longtime, we mean a really, really long time.

“Thirty-three years is not bad,” he said. “I stayed in it for a while.”

For the past 33 baseball seasons, Osmundson led the Spudders on the diamond, bringing to Ridgefield one state championship, years of winning seasons, and a ton of memories.

“They’ve all been special,” he said of his 33 teams. “I just can’t really think of one (that stands out over another). People always ask me, ‘Was that your best team, in 2002?’ Well, we won the state championship, but we had some other teams that were pretty darn good, too.”

Enough good teams to record at least 449 wins. Osmundson said he is not exactly sure if he got to 450 wins because he can’t find the piece of paper he used to jot down every team’s record. But he knows he has at least 449.

Well, until he finds that paper — or decides to use a computer one day — let’s give him 450.

Actually, who cares? The number of wins says little compared to the number of years.

He is Ridgefield athletics.

For 25 years, he coached football, including 16 as a head coach. He led the Spudders to a state championship in that sport, too.

He was the head coach for the girls basketball team for one season. No state title that year, but a lot of fun, even if it was a completely new experience.

While he still intends to teach for a few more years, the 58-year-old said he is through with coaching.

“I’ve put a lot of thought into this,” he said.

Osmundson started thinking about retiring four years ago. Then after last season, he gave himself until the holidays of this school year to make a decision. He had talks with school administrators, letting them know which way he was leaning. Then last week, he made it official in a team meeting with his baseball players.

“I told them I cared about them, I loved them, and I want to be their biggest fan,” Osmundson said.

There is no timetable to hire a replacement, but Osmundson said he believes the next coach will be successful.

“The cupboards, they’ve got some good stuff in them,” Osmundson said. “They’ll compete real good with what they have coming back.”

He even said he knows he is going to miss it, but he also knows it is the right time.

“I’m not going to say I’m doing this to spend more time with my wife,” Osmundson said, referring to Eileen. “We’ve been married 36 dang years. I’ve spent enough time with her!”

That was followed by one of those deep, hearty laughs that define him.

Then he got serious again.

“It’s just time to be together more for a lot of reasons.”

Three grandchildren are three wonderful reasons. Osmundson said he cannot wait to take them to Ridgefield games, as a grandpa, not a coach.

Perhaps this spring, Grandpa Osmundson will throw out the first pitch at a Ridgefield game, with the town’s baseball community there to say thank you, to honor him for all of his years.

Interestingly, Osmundson would say it has been his honor to coach at Ridgefield for 33 years.

“I’ve been able to live my dream,” he said. “I’ve known what I wanted to do since grade school. When Ridgefield called me in August 1977, I thought one of my buddies was kidding me. It was my dream.

“Coaching has just been a great way to stay involved in sports. That’s what I did. It worked out pretty good.”

Paul Valencia covers high school sports for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4557 or e-mail at paul.valencia@columbian.com.