1st Annual Ron Dixon Golf Tournament

How Coach Rhett Caruthers and the Ron Dixon Foundation are changing the course of time for Wildwood’s next generation, one young man at a time.

There is a kind of coach who sees the scoreboard, and there is a kind that sees something far bigger. Coach Rhett Caruthers is unmistakably the latter. In Wildwood, a small city with a big heart, he has quietly become one of the most important figures in the lives of the young men who wear the Wildcats uniform. Not because of the wins. Because of what he believes those young men deserve.

This June 21st, Caruthers and the Ron Dixon Foundation are hosting the 1st Annual Ron Dixon Golf Tournament at Continental Country Club, with every dollar raised going directly back to the Wildwood Wildcats football program. It is a fundraiser, yes, but it is also a statement. A statement about what this community owes its children, and what one man has already been giving them freely for years.

Where it All Began

Caruthers did not arrive at Wildwood Middle High School chasing a coaching career. He arrived because of the kids. In 2015, he helped launch the Wildwood Pop Warner program, a youth football league that put helmets on children who might otherwise have had nowhere to go and nothing to chase. What he did not expect was what would happen to him in return.

“I helped start the Pop Warner program in 2015, which led to building a bond with a lot of the families,” he says, with the matter-of-fact warmth of someone who does not fully realize the weight of what he is describing. “Now I am attached. And my goal is to see these boys help change the culture of Wildwood.”

That attachment, born in the bleachers and backyards of a town most people pass through on their way somewhere else, has grown into something lasting. Caruthers did not just stay. He planted roots.

Beyond the Scoreboard

Ask Coach Caruthers what success looks like for his program and he will not mention a championship. He will mention the kind of men his players become.

“By these boys becoming better men: fathers, husbands, and productive citizens of Wildwood.”

That is his answer, plain and direct. It is also the answer of someone who has thought about this deeply, who understands that a football field is one of the few places left where young men are held to a standard, pushed past their own perceived limits, and shown that discipline and love are not opposites.

It is a philosophy that has made Caruthers more than a coach in this community. He is a mentor, a constant, a person these boys can count on, and that, in many households, is something rare and precious.

The Foundation Partnership

The Ron Dixon Foundation entered the picture through a connection that feels, in retrospect, almost inevitable. Sumter County Superintendent Logan Brown brought Caruthers and Ron Dixon together, and the two men immediately found common ground.

“We hit it off with ideas to help grow this community on and off the field,” Caruthers recalls. Ron Dixon, who wore #86 for the New York Giants and spent his NFL career as a man of faith and community, was not looking for a photo opportunity. He was looking for exactly what Caruthers represents: real, sustained investment in young people.

The result is a partnership that goes beyond one golf tournament. It is a long-term commitment to building something in Wildwood that did not exist before, and making sure the next generation of Wildcats inherits it.

Where the Money Goes

When Caruthers talks about what the tournament funds will provide, he is specific, because it matters when you are talking about children who need things.

“One hundred percent to the growth of my boys,” he says. “From daily meals, protein, team gear/apparel, week-long camp tours to get these boys in front of colleges, and equipment.”

Daily meals. It is easy to read past those two words, but they carry enormous weight. In communities where food insecurity is real, a coach who makes sure his players are fed is not just running a program. He is running a lifeline.

College camp tours are another priority, because one of the greatest challenges facing small-town athletes is simply not being seen. Caruthers is determined to put his players in rooms where they can be discovered, recruited, and offered pathways that might otherwise never open for them.

Keeping the Pond Full

The challenges facing the Wildwood Wildcats are real and, to Caruthers, worth naming plainly. Neighboring schools with larger budgets and more resources sometimes recruit from Wildwood’s talent pool, drawing players away before they have a chance to build something together.

His response is not bitterness. It is urgency. “Love and trust in what we are trying to do,” he says, when asked what the community can do. “Show up and show out for these boys.”

Showing up, in Caruthers’ world, is not a passive act. It means carpooling kids to practice. Feeding them after workouts. Sitting in the stands on a Friday night not because you have a son on the field, but because you believe in what the field represents. It means choosing Wildwood, choosing to invest locally, believe locally, and root locally.

A Message to the Community

“You’re helping change the course of time for the next generations who will never forget who loved them first.”

That is Coach Caruthers’ message to anyone on the fence about joining the golf tournament as a player or sponsor. It is not a sales pitch. It is a reminder, of the long arc of impact, of the fact that children remember who showed up for them, and that those memories shape the adults they become.

At $500 per team and $175 for a hole sponsorship, participation in the 1st Annual Ron Dixon Golf Tournament is an investment measured not just in dollars, but in futures. The morning tees off at 8:30 AM with a shotgun start at Continental Country Club, 71 Continental Blvd, Wildwood, FL 34785.

The Long Game

When asked what he hopes the tournament becomes for Wildwood over time, Caruthers leans into vision. He talks about streamlining multiple avenues of revenue for school-wide growth, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that makes the Wildwood Wildcats a program kids aspire to join, not leave.

“So that our kids want to be a Wildcat and compete,” he says simply.

In those nine words is an entire philosophy of community building. Pride. Identity. Belonging. The idea that a child who grows up wanting to wear the Wildcat uniform, who dreams about it, works for it, earns it, is a child who has been given something to believe in.

That is what Coach Rhett Caruthers is building in Wildwood. Not just a football program. A reason to stay.