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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Giovanni Ricciardi is one of those former football players at West Forsyth who was seemingly all over the field.

That innate ability to know where to be as a 6-foot, 230-pound linebacker for certain plays has translated to a solid college career – the past four years at Western Carolina and now as a graduate transfer at The Citadel starting this fall.

Although he’s learned quite a bit playing in college, he credits his time in high school with his football instincts. However, he didn’t begin his high school career at West Forsyth for then-Coach Adrian Snow. He started it at another high school in Forsyth County.

“I never really had a set high school to play for because, at the time, I actually lived in downtown Winston,” Ricciardi said. “So, it never was really West only. I mean, eighth-grade year, I knew was going to play at Reynolds (on the JV team) and play there for one year and then transferred to West and felt I couldn’t have made a better decision.”

Playing in the Central Piedmont 4-A conference together when he was at Reynolds and played against West Forsyth Ricciardi’s freshman year was all the knowledge he needed before he made the decision to transfer.

“I just saw the program that Snow had at West, and I saw that he was putting guys in college every year and winning all the time,” Ricciardi said. “And that was something that I wanted to be a part of. And I just saw the culture that West had in football, how they were all about it.”

It was nothing against Reynolds, it was just that Ricciardi felt as though West Forsyth was a better fit for him. However, when he elected to transfer from Reynolds, it wasn’t just West Forsyth he had in mind.

“It was pretty much either West or East (Forsyth),” Ricciardi said.

His family now lives in Clemmons, but he has vivid memories of his first season at West Forsyth, which was his sophomore year, in which he played on the varsity team.

“It was nuts,” Ricciardi said. “You could tell, like day one of workouts, that it was a winning program just the way things were run, given guys were in the weight room and stuff. Because when spring ball started it was kind of crazy with like the media attention I was getting. I wasn’t used to all that. It felt like already going from high school to college like the first day of spring ball.”

Despite the transfer of schools and the transition from JV to varsity, Ricciardi began to flourish with the Titans.

“It was too hard of a jump because I really put the work in to prepare my body for it,” he said. “Once I got it down mentally, it was a pretty smooth transition. The biggest thing was the guys were a lot stronger and things just happened quicker. But once I got that, everything slowed down for me.”

In his first year at West Forsyth, the team went 11-0 during the regular season, winning the Central Piedmont 4-A championship. However, after receiving a first-round bye in the NCHSAA Class 4-AA playoffs, it lost at home against Cornelius Hough in the second round, ending its season. Ricciardi said he had around 100 tackles that season.

In his junior season for the Titans, they went from a 3-4 defense to a 4-2-5 his junior year.

“My stats actually went down my junior year kind of from a – we changed our system a little, and I kind of had to do some different things in the system where I wasn’t getting a chance to make as many tackles,” Ricciardi said. “But I felt like I got better and started to understand different types of systems and then what offenses were doing more.”

His junior season, the Titans finished 7-4-1. The next season, he knew, would be his last at West Forsyth.

“Really just trying to take it all in. I knew I was going to miss West a lot, but I knew this was my last shot at playing football at West and to win a state title,” Ricciardi said. “So, I was really all about football and then pushing everyone on the team to be really all about football.”

West Forsyth finished 11-2 his senior season, and it outscored its opponents 467-196. Davie County was the only team that tripped them up in the conference, but Charlotte Chambers beat West Forsyth in Clemmons in the third round of the NCHSAA Class 4-AA playoffs.

“I felt like that was the best team I had been on at West for sure,” Ricciardi said. “Our offense was just electric. It was really fun to play defense behind that because we knew we were going to score a lot of points, and really, we weren’t letting people score any points.”

Ricciardi said the Titans switched back to a 3-4 defense his senior season and he ended with about 115 tackles his senior season.

“So, that was the year I felt like everything really came together for me as a football player, and the game became really easy for me because I knew the offense was going to do half the time,” he said.

After the season, he hadn’t committed to a college yet, so he became engrossed in being recruited. Ricciardi said he committed to Western Carolina in early January of his senior year at West Forsyth.

“For the longest time, I thought I was going to App,” he said. “And then by the time they had got on their third staff they never really picked up the phone and called me, so I was kind of having to search through different options. And I just felt Western was the best one for me at the time.”

He packed his bags and spent the next four years in Cullowhee.

“I wanted to go somewhere close to home, not right down the street, but close enough,” Ricciardi said. “I really enjoyed my visit, and I liked the staff that was there at that current time. And I just felt like it was right because Snow told me that it was a good staff. And he thinks I would get on the field quickly there, and I ended up getting on the field just like he said.”

His freshman season at Western season, they had a split fall season and spring season because of COVID-19. He played in all seven games.

As a sophomore at Western Carolina, Ricciardi played in nine games and finished with seven tackles.

“It was weird because I almost felt like that was my freshman year,” he said. “I didn’t really experience going to class and stuff like that, what a normal weight room would look like, or meetings and stuff like that. It was really strange to be able to go around people and not have to worry about getting quarantined and stuff like that.”

As a junior there in 2022, Ricciardi played in 11 games and finished with one solo tackle and three assists. He also played in 11 games last fall.

“I felt like I understood my job every single time with the formation, the play, and everyone else’s job,” he said. “So, that made things really easy for me, and I was able to really just lead guys, take them into the right spot, and make sure everybody was in the right position, which I couldn’t have done during my sophomore year.”

At the end of last season, he had an extra year of eligibility because of the COVID year. Ricciardi could’ve stayed one more year at Western Carolina, but he decided to put his name in the transfer portal.

“I could’ve (stayed at WCU), but I felt like it was time for me to move on from there,” he said. “I felt like I had all I could there, and I was just ready for a change.”
He ultimately picked The Citadel, which is also in the Southern Conference like Western Carolina. However, he also spoke with Campbell, New Hampshire and Chattanooga.

“(The Citadel) is just a very prestigious university,” Ricciardi said. “I knew I missed out on getting an Ivy League degree when I was in high school because I simply couldn’t make the test scores to get in. I had a GPA, and I knew that it was in front of me to get a graduate degree from there. I didn’t want to miss out on something like that the second time for me at a university like that.”

The Citadel has a military commitment for students who are undergraduates, but because he’s going to be in graduate school Ricciardi didn’t have that commitment.
Even though The Citadel doesn’t open its season until Aug. 31 against crosstown rival Charleston Southern Ricciardi is already at The Citadel preparing for the season and reported there Memorial Day weekend.

“It’s been great,” he said. “The guys on the team are awesome. They’ve got a real tight brotherhood there. The coaches are great.”

Even though it’s not until the seventh game of the season, Ricciardi will get a chance to return to Cullowhee on Oct. 12 when The Citadel plays at Western Carolina.

“It’ll definitely be weird because they know about me, and I know all about them,” he said. “And it’ll be strange with the fans there and everything. I got a chance to get to know a lot of them, a lot of boosters in the club. I mean, I met some really great people there, so I’ll enjoy it.”