Lady Greyhounds Slowly Improve Under New Coach

Working hard may see you though, but for Shorewood girls varsity basketball head coach Jeff Eimers, it's all about a simple philosophy.

You see last year, Shorewood Athletic Director Bill Haury went searching and hired a girls and boys varsity basketball coach, however, their résumés couldn't look more different.

On one hand you have the very experienced boy's coach, Phil Jones, who took the Milwaukee Bay View boy's varsity basketball team to the state tournament four times — 1991, 1993, 1994, and 1999. They lost in the quarterfinal each of the first three times and lost the 1999 state championship game to Racine Case, 73-68.

Then there is Eimers. In his first year coaching at the varsity level, his résumé included coaching eight-grade boys at St. Robert in Shorewood. Still, he thinks that the experience he gained from this helped him to prepare for this job.

“(They're similar in) game strategy, what to prepare for as far as practices go, and the most important thing is you teach the same concepts,” Eimers said. “Whether you're coaching grade school or middle school or high school or college or anything, the players all have to know how to do the basics.”

And, his philosophy has seem to work and stick, at least initially, helping snap a 45-game losing streak over the two prior seasons and had the lady greyhounds on a 2-0 start in early December.

However, Shorewood has since won only three games, with a 5-15 record heading into Wednesday's game against Brown Deer, and 2-15 in the Woodland-Blue Conference, but Eimers still said he believes that his team has improved this season and it is obvious. Recent wins include Thomas More and Palmyra-Eagle.

He said he thinks this recent improvement has a lot to do with the strength of the conference.

“The Woodland Conference is loaded,” Eimers said. “You have three-to-four girls right now who are signed to play Division I college basketball or will be signed to play Division I college basketball."

Before he got into coaching eight years ago, Eimers was in a winery business, and now is self-employed in the real estate business. He has three girls, which doesn't leave much free time; what he has he devotes to reading the paper and catching up on the news.

And, ironically, a typical date night with his wife — watching a basketball game.