Heath Ragle has been named as the new athletic director and head football coach at Canton ISD.

“Excited to be home!!!”

That was all Heath Ragle posted on Twitter on Wednesday morning with a photo of his family attached.

Canton ISD announced that Ragle had been named the new athletic director and head football coach.

“It’s a lifetime dream of mine to come home and lead this athletic department and this community,” Ragle said. “I’m a product of Canton ISD. The chance to come back and develop young men and women of character and instill values into them like so many people here did for me, it’s awesome. It’s a gift from God.”

Ragle is a 2001 graduate of Canton, where he was a four-sport athlete in football, basketball, baseball and track. Ragle also played inside receiver at Tyler Junior College.

Ragle spent the past four seasons as the assistant athletic director, defensive coordinator and head track coach at Mineola High School. Ragle also started his career at Mineola, where he coached for five-plus years before going to be the defensive coordinator at Eustace for two years.

This will be Ragle’s second time as an athletic director and head football coach. He led the program at Eustace from 2013-17, going 22-29 in five seasons.

The Canton job came open on Feb. 18 when Casey Hubble departed for Jacksboro after two seasons. The Eagles were 9-12 with two playoff appearances under Hubble.

When the job opened, there was a lot of comments on social media suggesting that Ragle be the person to take over the Canton program.

“It meant a lot,” Ragle said. “I absolutely love Mineola, and it was going to take a really strong school, and Canton was the only school I would leave Mineola for, because it’s my dream job. To see the community rally around that and my coaching peers that knew what Canton meant to me, and to see that reciprocated, that was neat to see.”

Ragle takes over a Canton program that has made the playoffs in eight of the last 10 seasons.

“I think they can expect a well-disciplined team, a tough team that is going to battle for all four quarters, put the work in and make Canton proud,” Ragle said. “You’re going to look out on Friday nights and see kids competing their tails off. I’m confident in that. We plan to be an organized team and a fundamentally sound football team.”

Ragle and his wife, Ashley, have three children — Easton, 9, Everly, 7 and Ella, 4.