For Luke Darrah, there were no plans for a sixth act as a high school softball coach after he retired as Kent Roosevelt’s softball coach last year. Darrah’s retirement only lasted briefly and will help turn around the Ravenna Ravens’ softball team, having been announced as their new head coach on Jan. 1.
“I enjoy working with kids that want to learn the game,” the first-year Ravenna coach told The Weekly Villager on March 1. “They are there to learn softball and they can do other high school activities at other times, but when they are in softball time, they focus on softball and want to learn and want to be there and don’t complain and they just do, and it is good to see that.
After finishing his sixth year as the Rough Riders’ coach, Darrah said that he was ready to call it a career after coaching high school softball for 34 years, including 24 seasons in Portage County.
Although he planned to retire from high school softball, Darrah would still be a busy man as his days were filled with instructing classes at Darrah’s All-Star Baseball & Softball Academy, a baseball and softball training facility in Ravenna that he has operated with his son, Matt, for 18 years.
He acknowledged that his interest was piqued when he heard about the head coach opening at Ravenna. After speaking with Athletic Director Jim Lunardi, Darrah said that he liked what he heard, which was that the players wanted to turn things around.
“He said that the girls wanted to learn, they wanted to work hard and wanted to focus and they wanted a better softball experience and they were ready,” he added. “He just told me that these girls were ready to turn the corner.”
That was music to his ears, as Darrah’s coaching career in Portage County has been highlighted by taking over programs that have started from square one and turned them into formidable programs. When he took over the Crestwood Red Devils’ in 2009, the team won 17 games in his first season. The same thing happened at Kent Roosevelt when he started in 2018, and the Rough Riders reached 18 victories in his first season.
“I enjoy taking a new program where I don’t know anyone and there really is no expectations,” he noted. “We get them to work hard, and we get them to focus, we teach them some skills and hopefully their experience improves.”
Already with strong ties to Portage County having grown up there, Darrah said that he also has developed a strong connection to the softball community, especially since his Academy works with many Portage County kids. Darrah said that he has enjoyed instructing those athletes and seeing them go on to become better softball players.
Darrah’s love for softball did not blossom until after he graduated from high school, as he played baseball while attending Rootstown High School. He said that after he graduated, he joined a men’s fast-pitch softball league and instantly developed a love for the sport.
He acknowledged that he found softball to be an even more challenging game than baseball.
“You have a shorter distance to the pitcher, the pitcher throws hard and some of these players and pitchers are really good at the national and international level and you have to be dedicated,” he said.
Darrah’s first taste of coaching Portage County high school softball came in 1982 when he became the Rough Riders’ junior varsity coach. He spent 10 years there before he moved on to coach at Akron Archbishop Hoban in 1992, where the team repeated as state champions in his first season there.
He coached at Akron Archbishop Hoban for 10 years before taking a brief retirement. Soon after, he and his son founded the Darrah’s All-Star Baseball & Softball Academy after his son’s baseball career ended.
“We decided to do this,” he said. “I had been asked to do several clinics over the years and a lot of them I turned down and some of them I didn’t, so we saw a need for basic fundamentals.”
Darrah came out of retirement to take over the Red Devils’ program in 2009 and coached high school softball for 15 seasons before he retired last season. Darrah said he could not resist the urge to return to the diamond especially after speaking with Lunardi.
Although he is inheriting a program that has won only five games over the last two years, Darrah is right in his element and will try and revive the program.
“Their hard and work and enthusiasm over the fact that they have a new coaching staff is really terrific,” he said. “It has really motivated me and my assistant coaches and they are just doing an outstanding job.”
