Ronnie Stapler’s young grandson, Walker, voiced the question that high school basketball fans across the state likely have on their minds today: “Granddaddy, what are you going to do tomorrow? All you’ve ever done is coach basketball. What are you going to do tomorrow afternoon?’”

Today the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame basketball coach announced his decision to retire after 53 years as a head coach at Grissom, Guntersville, Randolph School and finally at Westminster Christian. Stapler has won 868 games, third-best in AHSAA history, and he led two of his Grissom teams and one at Westminster Christian to state titles.

“I told him I’ll be fine,” Stapler said. “I went for a mile swim this morning and got in a lift and I’m fixing to go hit some golf balls and work on my handicap.”

The 75-year-old, who turns 76 on May 31, said his five grandchildren are one of the main reasons he decided to finally retire.

“It’s time to watch my grandkids,” he said. “I’ve missed a bunch of their stuff. I had a great career and was able to do a lot of things, but when they asked, ‘Why weren’t you at my game?’ I didn’t have much of an answer.

“I know I’m going to miss it,” Stapler said. “I loved doing the daily preparation. The games were not the most important thing to me. I loved teaching fundamentals of the game every day in practice. I loved the daily preparation to play other teams.”

Stapler, who was the girls’ head basketball coach at Randolph, also coached golf — his Grissom boys’ team won a state championship in 1983 — wrestling, football and softball. He became head basketball coach at Grissom in 1970 and won state titles in 1988 and 1999. He led Westminster Christian to three runner-up finishes as well, including this season. He coached four teams to second-place finishes and made nine Final Fours. Stapler coached 12 teams to the Elite Eight and won 23 area championships.

In a statement released by 97.7 ESPN The Zone in Huntsville this morning, he said, “Being a basketball coach is all that I ever wanted to do, and I hope that my enthusiasm and passion have helped people along the way.”

In assessing his career for AL.com, Stapler said, “I think there are not too many of us guys left who tell kids the truth. Our program is one of those programs where you’re told the truth. We expected them to work hard, and our program was a great teacher of fundamentals. I heard a long time ago that fundamentals are elephants and X’s and O’s are rabbits. If you can pass and catch, dribble and handle the ball without making mistakes, get more shots and better shots than your opponent and defend, you’ll win. If you didn’t defend, you couldn’t play. Being able to defend develops toughness in your program.”

Stapler’s son, Scott, a longtime college basketball assistant and former athletic director for Huntsville City Schools, said his father’s choice was not an emotional decision.

“He puts everything into every year and it wore on him,” Scott said. “They came up short this season, but he had a peace about it. He felt they did all they could do, and I think he was at peace with his career. A big factor is that I have a son, Eli, who is a 10th grader at Huntsville High and a niece in the 10th grade at Vestavia Hills, Grayson Hudgens, who were playing at the same time he was. They both have a chance to be great players and that was tugging at him.

“He felt like he had an opportunity to help younger coaches. People reach out to him now for advice and it’s a lot more than X’s and O’s type things. He wants to continue to be a resource.”

Stapler was honored as AHSAA Coach of the Year three times and coached the Alabama All-Stars twice. He coached two Alabama Sports Writers Association Mr. Basketball winners in Marvin Stone and Chris White at Grissom. He also coached five ASWA Players of the Year in Jay Scherer (1988, Grissom), Stone (1997 and 1998, Grissom), White (2001, Grissom), Trey Petty (2016, Westminster Christian) and Auston Leslie (2019, Westminster Christian).

Stapler is a west Huntsville native — “Boogertown,” he said everyone called it — and is a 1965 graduate of Butler High School. “There was not a lot going on in west Huntsville,” Stapler said. “We’d go to the McCormick YMCA and hang out. It’s not there anymore, but I spend a lot of time now at the Southeast YMCA, swimming and weightlifting.”

Stapler played basketball at Walker College in Jasper, now Bevill State Community College, and at Centenary College in Shreveport, La., and at Florence State, now the University of North Alabama, where he got his bachelor’s degree. He earned his master’s at the University of Montevallo. He met his wife, Nancy, at UNA and they were married in 1969.

“My wife is going to love having me around,” he said. “I’m sure she has a lot of those ‘honey-do’s’ for me. I’ll stay busy.”

Stapler said he intends to work teaching skills development at the Alabama Basketball Academy that he founded with Scott in 2008.