‘Unfailingly loyal’: Ravenscroft football coach Ned Gonet leaves legacy beyond the field

As consistently as the sun setting beyond Gonet Gateway on the Ravenscroft School grounds, a walking man makes several laps around the track at the athletic complex, a path that takes him along the Ravens’ football sideline multiple times over.

One would never know, observing the man’s confident gait, just how many hard miles he’s walked throughout his 64 years, which includes 57 consecutive football seasons as either a player or coach.

The walking man is Edward Jay Gonet, known simply as “Ned,” after whom the Gateway is named. Gonet, Ravenscroft’s athletic director and head football coach since 1981, is North Carolina’s longest continuously tenured high school gridiron head coach at one school — ever. He will lead the Ravens in his final regular-season home game Friday, Oct. 21, against Harrells Christian before stepping aside as coach after his 42nd season.

“Day in and day out, he shows up,” Ravenscroft Head Of School Doreen Kelly said. “His moral responsibility for being here always has been a priority for him, well beyond what the organization would ask of him.

“It is rooted in a family system of people who show up. You see that in his own sons.”

A Ravenscroft family

Gonet is the rare coach who saw sons Cole (Ravenscroft ’09) and Connor (Ravenscroft ’11) born into a school community’s culture where they thrived as players on the same fields where they attended their father’s practices and games from their earliest days. Gonet has coached many fathers and sons, including Will Hamlin (Ravenscroft ‘91) and son Drake (Ravenscroft ‘22).

“If Ned’s still going to be coaching when my son is going to school,” Will Hamlin promised himself, “then absolutely, there’s nobody else I would want to coach my son in football.”

Understanding Gonet requires a multi-generational perspective, beginning with his late father, Edward, and mother Mary. In Gonet’s final season, the family tree has extended its limbs once again: His 16-month-old grandson, Henry, can be seen frolicking on the same fields where dad, Cole, and uncle Connor first played at the same age.

“It’s ‘fun loving Grandpa,’ ” Cole Gonet said. “With Connor and I, it was a little more ‘Dad and coach.’ He gets a little bit of a lighter touch than we did. He’s enjoyed having Henry here to experience it, also. Ten or 15 years down the line, looking back on pictures and videos of Henry being here, Henry will cherish it, too.”

Gonet has shepherded the Ravens to five N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association state championships (1985, ’89, ’94, 2000, ’15), but by his own admission, he is unconcerned with remembering individual teams’ records in favor of greater considerations.

“The most important thing I saw was the relationships built, the respect that was put forth,” Gonet said.

‘Passion for teaching’

Gonet is an “old-school,” or “throwback” coach. His emphasis on fundamentals prevails today as it did in 1981. His daily walk is among the only autumn afternoon time frame when the adjacent fields ever will be so silent.

Gonet’s booming voice resonates with a certain identity across the Falls Of Neuse Road campus as he exhorts his student-athletes.

“Believe it or not, he’s toned it down a little bit,” Cole Gonet said, referencing a standard the longtime coach set from his earliest day at the helm.

Though, for current players, things don’t necessarily seem “toned down.”

“It’s still the way it is,” Ravens quarterback Kyle Hawkins said. “They walk onto the field, and it’s almost shell shock. Sometimes, he has so much passion for teaching that he’s misunderstood.”

Gonet admitted: “I coach them pretty hard.”

As coaching and teaching are so often intertwined, Gonet’s coaching begins in the classroom.

“We might have somebody score a touchdown and celebrate, but might not have run the right pattern, or have been off their mark,” Gonet said. “Sometimes, they don’t understand that until I show the film.

“I pat them on the back and give them encouragement and challenge them to do better.”

Dave Monaco, a previous assistant coach who served concurrently as Ravenscroft’s Assistant Head Of School for Academic Affairs, saw firsthand the academic and athletic parallels.

“Ned was exacting in his discipline. Football was his subject,” Monaco said. “The same kind of rigor one would hold students to in an English, Math, or Foreign Language classroom, Ned held his players to that. He had every degree or standard of excellence that an excellent classroom teacher had.”

A strong example

Gonet, a former Duke University running back, is known for his scout team participation during practices.

Hip and knee replacements, along with a back fusion, have slowed him — but not stopped him — from demonstrating appropriate playing techniques.

There is a limit, though.

“Not against me,” kidded Ravens running back William Stevenson, who is 6 foot and 220 pounds. “He knows he can’t take that big boom I’ll give him.”

Stevenson is the leading rusher for an 8-1 Ravenscroft team enjoying its best season since 2008. Both Cole and Connor Gonet played on that team.

“I really just try to be a sponge and soak up all the knowledge he tries to give to me,” Stevenson said.

Owen Fincher, a senior captain like Hawkins and Stevenson, added that Gonet’s ability to understand and connect with each individual player strengthens his teaching.

“Some guys need more attention than others,“ Fincher said “I’ve seen him interact with players based on what they need. He understands how to change with the years because, obviously, kids change over time.”

Some change is good, of course. But some things don’t change. Nor should they.

“The one thing that hasn’t changed is my Dad’s passion for the school, passion for these players, passion for developing these young men into leaders — in the classroom and on the field,” Connor Gonet said.

Gonet’s message, he insists, remains unchanged. Antwan Harris (Ravenscroft ’96) — a Super Bowl champion three times over with the New England Patriots, agrees.

“Practice like you play. Don’t ever take a minute off. Always work hard,” Harris recalled with a smile, noting Gonet’s defining mantra.

Harris discussed these tenets relative to seeing firsthand the Patriots’ progression from a 5-11 record in 2000, to winning the Super Bowl a year later.

“That’s when I realized what it really meant,” Harris said. “Just because you were making millions more dollars than the other person didn’t mean you weren’t going to work as hard. Everybody was in there together, practicing and playing hard.”

Making memories, passing the torch

Jim Gibbons, who will succeed Gonet as head coach next fall, is in his 15th year on the staff. Monaco spent 16 seasons with Gonet. Scott DeShields, who died in 2016, spent more than a decade alongside the venerable coach, and Chip Hoggard — who Gonet acknowledges as responsible for Ravenscroft’s pristine fields — has surpassed 40 years at his side.

“He’s still running things the way he wants to run them,” Gibbons said. “I think there are some times he’s enjoying the trip.”

Gonet’s words embrace the true team concept that leads to individual accolades and milestones. As a team, the Ravens are pursuing a 12th conference championship.

“His work is rooted in the pronoun ‘we,’ “ Kelly said. “What are ‘we’ going to get done to help this group of kids get ready to compete?”

Gonet’s recollection of one of his favorite home-field sideline memories validates his “we-first” approach.

In 2008, Ravenscroft hosted Louisburg. The game marked one of the first times Cole and Connor — in 12th and 10th grades — played alongside each other in a high school game. Both sons were linebackers.

Connor tipped a pass, Cole caught the football and scored a touchdown.

“It kind of brought a smile to my face because it accentuated their two personalities,” Gonet said. “Cole wanted nothing to do with any celebration. Connor ignited a celebration and jumped into his brother’s arms, from which Cole probably executed the best stiff arm.”

Almost immediately, Gonet added: “I’m sure somebody threw a block to get him in the end zone.”

As the sun sets beyond Gonet Gateway, so, too, does it set on the veteran coach’s career. He remains mindful of the values of consistency and loyalty, handed to him by his parents and passed along to his sons, and now to his grandson

“I want to go out and set the foundation for this team and also for the future as I hand it off,” Gonet said.

The Gonet legacy

Gonet’s legacy is multifaceted.

“His most admirable and endearing trait is his loyalty,” Monaco said. “Those who come into his circle stay in his circle.”

Last season, Gonet spoke at the funeral of Dr. Preston Bradshaw — the very first Ravens football parent he met in 1981. Gonet and Bradshaw cultivated a 40-year friendship.

On Saturday, Gonet will speak at a memorial service for Dr. Jim Ledyard, one of Kelly’s predecessors as Ravenscroft Head Of School. Ledyard’s son, Brian, was the starting quarterback on the Ravens’ 1994 state championship team.

“I think Ned agreed to speak at my Dad’s service because it’s an opportunity to take care of me and my family. It’s an opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to a longtime colleague and friend,” Brian Ledyard said. “And it’s an opportunity to serve the community that’s been central in his life for so long.

“He’s unfailingly loyal.”