Ron Ernst

Football coach

Red Hawks’ head football coach and defensive coordinator Ron Ernst retired at the end of the 2022 season after 32 seasons at the helm. He led the Red Hawks to 193 wins and 114 losses, making him the winningest football coach in both the Midwest Conference and Ripon College history.

Ronald Lee Ernst was born Oct. 5, 1957, and is a native of Hastings, Nebraska. He graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan with a bachelor’s degree in social science and physical education. He earned his master’s degree in physical education and athletic administration at the University of Northern Colorado in 1990.

He worked as an assistant at the University of Northern Colorado for two years and head coach at the high school level in Nebraska and Colorado for nine years, winning a conference championship at each high school and being named the Colorado AAA Coach of the Year by the Denver Post in 1987.

He came to Ripon College in 1991. Ernst led the Red Hawks to 27 winning seasons, producing a win percentage of .629. His teams captured three Midwest Conference (MWC) North Division titles (1995, 1996 and 1997) and MWC Championships (1996, 2001 and 2022). Ernst was named MWC Coach of the Year in 1996 when he led the team to a school-record nine-win season, and 2022, as well as Wisconsin Private College Coach of the Year in 2022. He also has been named the NCAA Division III Region 5 Coach of the Year (1995) and the Wisconsin Football Private College Coach of the Year on three occasions (2001, 2008 and 2010). In 2006, Ernst was inducted into the Ripon College Hall of Fame and in March 2009, he earned a spot in the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

In his historic final season, Ernst led the Red Hawks to an overall record of 9 wins and 1 loss, which included a share of the school’s first MWC Football Championship since 2001. The season was the team’s best in more than a decade and earned Ernst Coach of the Year honors from both the MWC (the second of his career) and the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (his fourth).

Of his proudest accomplishments as head coach, Ernst includes helping young men navigate life from the ages of 18 to 22, as well as seeing his players graduate and go on to be successful members of society. Many of his former players were elected to the Ripon College Athletics Hall of Fame and three were Private College Players of the Year: Bill Schultz, Class of 1997, Troy DeVoe, Class of 2002, and Josh Kraemer, Class of 2009.

Ernst also served Ripon College as an assistant athletic director, sports information director, head golf coach and professor of exercise science.