Travis Rauh, a celebrated coach with 23 seasons at Townsend under his belt, Laurel High School Appoints Travis Rauh as Head Football Coach.
The Laurel School Board officially approved Rauh’s hiring at their meeting on Monday.
The 47-year-old Rauh will experience a sort of homecoming, as he previously volunteered as an assistant at Laurel High School in 1998 and 1999 while completing his student teaching requirements. Following that, Rauh spent two seasons as an assistant at Townsend before becoming the Bulldogs’ head coach for an impressive 21 years.
“I was at a point where I needed a new challenge,” Rauh told MTN Sports during a phone interview Monday. “The last couple years I decided that if there was an opening that worked out and put me in a place I want to be, I was going to make a run at it.
“Laurel is a place I have connections to. It’s where I first started coaching. My time in Laurel confirmed that I wanted to be a football coach, and when I saw it open up I thought it would be great to kind of go back where it started.”
Rauh volunteered as an assistant at Laurel for two years under Bob Connors, who led the team to a state championship in 1999.
During his 21-season tenure at Townsend, Rauh achieved a 123-67 overall record, claimed six conference titles, and secured a Class B state championship in 2014. He succeeds Mike Ludwig, who retired in January after winning 133 games and two Class A state championships over 21 years as head coach.
Rauh admitted that departing from Townsend was one of the most challenging decisions he has made as a coach. The difficulty of the decision became apparent when he informed his team about accepting another job a few weeks ago.
“I’ve made a lot of good friends here and worked with some tremendous people,” Rauh added. “But more and more I just had the feeling that I needed to do this. There’s never a good time to leave, but judging where I’m at in my career it was either you do it now or you’re never going to do it.”