Shorewood coach steps down
It’s not an overstatement to say Jeff Eimers orchestrated one of the biggest turnarounds seen in this part of the state in recent memory.
Before he came to Shorewood, the Greyhounds’ girls basketball teams struggled. There were four consecutive losing seasons with each worse than the one before it.
There was a 45-game losing streak and a run of 55 straight loses in the Woodland Conference.
Not once during the winless campaign of 2008-’09 did Shorewood come within single digits of an opponent. They managed it twice in 23 games the following year.
This wasn’t the kind of job people were lining up to take.
“There were only three people who actually interviewed for the job,” Eimers recalled.
Eimers announced his resignation this week following an eight-year run that included Woodland East titles in four of the last five years and regional championships in 2015 and ’17. His record was 109-81 (.574) overall and 70-50 (.583) in the Woodland.
During that run he coached daughters Ashley, a 2015 graduate, and Megan, a 2016 graduate. In stepping down, he’ll get one last chance to see his son, Aaron, play for Shorewood’s boys team. The team’s games are often at the same time as the girls games.
“This is my last kid,” Eimers said. “After this year, he’s gone, so I thought it was time. It was a tough thing to do, though.”
Eimers’ only experience coaching before taking the Shorewood job was working with eighth graders at St. Robert in Shorewood. Ashley was on the verge of reaching high school when the job opened.
“She had a really good class. Grace Hayes. Aisling Moloney, Sarah Mackowski. My wife coached them at St. Robert,” Eimers said. “We knew they were going to go to Shorewood. I’m self-employed, so basically I said there is an opportunity there, and I went and applied . ... That’s how the whole thing started.”
In Eimers’ first game, the team snapped its 45-game losing streak. The team went 7-17 its first two seasons before starting its current string of six straight winning seasons.
“It has been a close-knit group where all these players who have played, I know them quite well,” Eimers said. “I know their parents quite well. It’s not something you see every day. It’s more like a small town.”
The Greyhounds are 58-20 (.745) in the league the past five years. They were 12-0 this year (17-6 overall).
It was a great run.
“I was 49 years old when they hired me,” he said. “How many people at that age get hired as a high school coach? And then I got to coach my daughters and all these other first-class individuals. That’s a pretty special thing.”