By Tracy Gupton
Plaudits like “Such an awesome teacher, coach, mentor and friend,” were left by former students and associates of Mattie Sue Ringgold when the longtime Bay City High School girls basketball coach passed away in 2019. “Thank you Miss Ringgold for loving us all,” said Koy Coffer.
“My favorite coach,” echoed JoAnn Zepeda Zuniga. “One time I was passing out church flyers in her neighborhood and she sees me and calls me by my last name (maiden). She still recognized me.”
Patti Lyle Johnson left the following message for Mattie Sue’s family following Coach Ringgold’s passing: “Mattie Sue will be missed by so many. Love and prayers to all her family, friends and the many students whose lives she touched.”
Sylvia Yeats said, “I played basketball for Coach Ringgold from 1965 to 1969. Lots of fun and laughter with her. Fly high with the angels Mattie. Great coach and great personality.” And another of her Lady Black Cats players, Melva Manning, summed up the feelings of so many of the Bay City girls who competed in high school under the tutelage of Mattie Sue Ringgold: “She will be missed, the many lives she touched and kindness will be forever remembered.”
Mattie Sue Ringgold will be one of five former outstanding athletes “brought to life” at the November 1st Meet Your Ancestors event at historic Columbia Cemetery in West Columbia. The annual program is co-sponsored by the Columbia Historical Museum and the Columbia Cemetery Association. This year’s Meet Your Ancestors will begin at 5 p.m. at the front gates of Columbia Cemetery across Jackson Street from the Columbia Methodist Church. The event is free and everyone is encouraged to attend. It will last until 7 p.m. or until there are no more visitors waiting at the front gates. Groups of 10 will be led from grave to grave where actors will be portraying the five people selected by the boards of directors of the Columbia Historical Museum and Columbia Cemetery Association.
“Each of the once great athletes being portrayed at this year’s Meet Your Ancestors is a member of a Hall of Fame, with some being elected to multiple halls of fame,” said Tracy Gupton, president of the Columbia Cemetery Association and secretary of the Columbia Historical Museum. “Former pro football player Buddy Tinsley is in the Barbers Hill High School Hall of Fame, the Baylor Bears Hall of Fame and both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Hall of Fame and the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame. ‘Big Daddy’ Tinsley definitely wins the competition among these five people for being in the most halls of fame.”
Mattie Sue Ringgold will be portrayed at the November 1st Meet Your Ancestors by one of her former basketball players at Bay City High School, Linda Babik Miska. When Bay City High School created its athletics Hall of Fame in 2001, the former West Columbian Mattie Sue Ringgold was included with that first group of inductees. And Linda Babik Miska followed her former coach the following year.
Linda Babik excelled in basketball from 1965 to 1968 at Bay City High School and was a member of the Matagorda County high school’s first girls basketball district championship team in 1968 under Coach Ringgold’s leadership. After earning first team all-district honors her senior season at Bay City High School, Linda went on to play basketball in 1968 and 1969 at Wharton County Junior College and was a two-year starter at Sam Houston State University from 1969 to 1971.
A former Algebra teacher at West Columbia Junior High School for more than 25 years, Linda Miska said she enjoyed playing high school basketball for Coach Ringgold and remembers Mattie Sue attending some of her college basketball games in Wharton and in Huntsville when she was a starter for the Lady Bearkats at Sam Houston State.
“I am proud of the fact that so many of my former student athletes chose the teacher/coach profession,” Mattie Sue Ringgold said. “A number of these returned to Bay City. In spite of coming from one of Bay City’s rival towns, West Columbia, I still consider Bay City my home.”
Mattie Sue, born May 15, 1933, in West Columbia, the next to the youngest of James Wyatt Ringgold Sr. and Nellie Adelia Chamblee Ringgold’s 10 children, lettered multiple seasons in several sports while attending West Columbia High School. She coached girls’ athletics from 1957 to 1991 at Bay City High School.
During those 36 years, her basketball teams won 12 district championships and made a trip to the state finals in 1981. Coach Ringgold’s impressive won-loss record at Bay City High School was 422 wins and 272 losses for a winning percentage of .608.
She started the girls track program in 1970 at Bay City High School and won a number of district team championships with participants at the state track meet in Austin nearly every year during her long coaching career.
Mattie Sue suffered through the tragic loss of her older brother, Charles Frank “Chickie” Ringgold, who was killed in action during World War II. Mattie Sue was only 11 years old and living in West Columbia when her family learned that Chickie, a Marine paratrooper, had been killed in Guam July 25, 1944. He was only 19 years old.
Mattie Sue outlived all of her siblings. Her oldest sister, Anna Catherine Gries, passed away in 1974; her mother died in 1976; sister Nell Adelia Mercer died in 1994; and her brother, William Albert “Billy” Ringgold passed away in 1997. She lost her sister Mary Frances Ringgold in 2002, her big brother, James Wyatt “Bubba” Ringgold Jr. in 2006, and her baby sister, Evelyn Marie “Babe” Liles, in 2015. She also had an older brother, Richard T. Ringgold. Both older brothers Bubba and Richard Ringgold played college football.
J.W. Ringgold Sr., the father of 10 kids, died at 73 in 1961. He had been a World War I veteran and a retired employee of the Humble Oil Company in West Columbia.
