Longtime Keystone coach Holzhauer adds AD role

Keystone coach Jeff Holzhauer is a busy man.

The boys basketball and track and field coach was appointed Keystone’s new athletic director at the June 29 board of education meeting. He’ll replace the outgoing Jonathan Bailey, who is taking the same post at Highland.

“It’s a position I’ve been approached about a couple of times throughout my career,” Holzhauer said. “It just didn’t work at the time with my family and how old my kids were. My kids are now getting a little bit older and moving into junior high. I’ve been very active and coaching in youth sports for years and years, so I’m obviously giving that up as my kids get older.”

“I’m used to being busy five-to-six nights a week, and that won’t change. A lot of this is going to be me attending my kids events and attending high school events I’ve been at in the past. I’m used to being a busy guy.”

A former cross country coach until he landed the head boys basketball position years ago, Holzhauer has been a track coach in the Keystone program for years and has coached fourtime state champion Ryne Shackleford, (twice in long jump, once each in the 100 and 200 meters) and numerous girls in Keystone’s track program. Not only that, he’s coached at every level of the Wildcats’ basketball program. He doesn’t intend to step away from coaching along with picking up his newest role.

“A lot of people don’t know I was a cross country coach at Keystone for 10 years when I was coaching three different sports, for both the boys and girls cross country from 7 through 12,” he said.

“I’ve been coaching the girls track program for 20 years and the head coach for 18 years. I think I come into this position with a lot of experience dealing with kids, building programs, sustaining programs and understanding the needs of parents and thoughts and questions that parents have. I just felt it was the right time to make this move.”

As for any changes that could be made to Keystone Athletics, Holzhauer doesn’t feel anything drastic is necessary.

“I don’t plan on making any changes. I feel like I’m following up one of the best athletic directors around in Jon Bailey,” Holzhauer said. “If I can keep things moving in the direction that Jon has, I think that’ll be great for our district. One of the other reasons I was interested in the position was a need for longevity. I think it helps when you have an understanding of the community and understanding the history and the goals we’ve had as a district athletically and have the ability to stick to that.”

“You may have goals to move in a certain direction. However, when you lose administrators and you lose athletic directors, a lot of times those goals disappear when the people who left before them. If I’m looking to change anything, it is bringing longevity to the position so we can accomplish more things in the long run that are going to benefit our student-athletes.”