By Ken Barhorst
ANNA — He said he’s coached “just about everything” in his time at Anna. But until now, he has not been a head varsity coach.
That all changed recently when Maurer was selected from what athletic director Mike Muehlfeld said was a strong candidate list to take over as the head coach of the high school girls basketball team.
Maurer replaces Doug Martin, who resigned after three seasons as the head coach to become an assistant coach at Edison State Community College in Piqua. Martin had a 50-26 record during his tenure.
Maurer has been a junior high boys basketball coach for the past 10 or so years, and has also coached football, track and cross country, all at the junior high level. So this is a big step in his career.
“The last two or three years, I’ve kinda thought that when that job became available, I would be interested,” Maurer said. “I’m a ‘96 Anna grad, I love Anna, and I’ve been an Anna guy all my life. So for me it was the perfect time and the perfect opportunity. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this opportunity.”
Muehlfeld is excited about Mauer too.
“Jeff is highly organized, very strong on fundamentals, and very strong on defense,” Muehlfeld said. “His teams over the years have consistently improved over the course of the season, and those were all key things we looked at. He was selected from a pool of very strong candidates, both from within and outside of the district.”
Of course, one of the questions Maurer has heard a lot since being named the head coach is how different will it be coaching girls basketball after coaching the boys all these years.
“I’ve been asked that question a lot, and for me I just want to coach good athletes,” he said. “And whether they are boys or girls is not a concern to me. I’ve been coaching and watching for years and I know how good these athletes are. So I’m really looking forward to it.”
He has been working with his players some this summer and is pleased so far.
“I’m real happy with the girls,” he said. “They have a great attitude and they’ve been showing up all summer long and done everything we’ve asked. Right now our focus is on the fundamentals and making our defense a little better.”
The Lady Rocket players can expect to play man-to-man, and also be patient on offense.
“I stress man-to-man mostly, because if you can play that, you can play zone,” he said. “Offensively, we’ve really been stressing shot selection. If we can push the ball and get good shots, we’ll want to do that. But when we don’t have the numbers, we need to be patient and run some offense. A lot will depend on our personnel.”
He knows his team will play a difficult schedule. That never changes.
“I’m well aware that when you’re coaching in the County, you will face quality players and quality coaches,” he said. “And our non-league schedule is a lot of MAC schools. The opportunity to coach against those players and coaches is a real challenge, and one I’m excited about.”
