HONORING CAREER … Jerry Keifer is honored, with his family by his side, for 31 years as head basketball coach at Evergreen before a game with Bryan. (PHOTO BY RENEA KESSLER / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
METAMORA – So you wanna be a high school basketball coach? After you just beat a district power by two points, you wanna listen to some parent bark about why little Johnny didn’t get to play when you know as a coach he can’t go left or guard anyone even with the Fifth Army on his side?
You wanna play with the hand that’s dealt at a public school rather than coach at a private school that will recruit five new starters for you every year and still be successful? THEN you still wanna do it year after year for 31 years?
Evergreen’s Jerry Keifer wanted to coach basketball, and did just that, taking over a program that had a record of 173 wins and 354 losses in the 26 years preceding his appointment. That record again ahead of Keifer was 173-354.
Keifer went 11-10 in his first season, the Vikings first winning season in 14 years. Four years later the Vikings not only won their first OHSAA sectional title, but they also went one better and won the district as well on their way to a berth in the Division III regionals before eventually falling to eventual state runner-up Patrick Henry.
For Keifer, the wins kept piling up and when he finished the 2023-24 season, that total was 427 compared to just 278 losses, a far cry from the doldrums pre-Keifer.
When the Vikings were knocked out of the Division III tournament this season, Keifer hung up his whistle and put down his clipboard for the last time, announcing his retirement from the coaching ranks.
Besides the 427 wins and 61% winning percentage, Keifer’s teams won 14 sectional titles, three championships in the NWOAL, four district titles including a trip to the Elite 8 in 2020 before COVID ended the season ahead of a regional final title game.
Keifer’s first team was led by high scoring Chad Herrick and started the season with an 8-2 record. A series of injuries, including one to Herrick who was averaging over 26 ppg., hindered Evergreen the rest of the way but the bar had been reset.
A short time later, teams led by 1,000-point scorers Brooks Miller and Adam Freels won that first grouping of afore mentioned titles.
Evergreen started 4-7 that year and were down 21 at the half at Emmanuel Christian who were led by Lionel Armstead, who later was a four-year starter at West Virginia.
Evergreen roared back to beat Emmanuel as Miller scored a tip-in at the buzzer and won 10 of their last 13 to reach the Regionals.
“The thing about that was Adam broke his nose pretty badly in the last scrimmage that year and we played the first about 10 games without him or our record may have been even better.”
“He was the only player that played any time the year before and was our leading scorer at the time” Keifer remembered. “I remember everyone was buying sectional championship t-shirts because we had never won one before.”
“Then we won the district, and everyone bought another set of t-shirts. Our fans were fantastic. They packed the Waite Fieldhouse and Bowling Green an hour before the games, and you could feel the change in the culture.”
“I remember I had a parent tell me after we lost a close game against, I believe Bryan, ‘well you really scared them, you were up five at the half’, and I remember saying ‘well we aren’t here to scare people we are here to win.”
“We got that first one and people started to believe, and our scaring days were over, and our winning days were just beginning.”
Keifer’s Vikings followed that year up with a 20-2 record the next year that included another sectional title and an NWOAL championship behind Freels and Miller.
The following year Freels had graduated but Miller was still there and led Evergreen to a second district title and Sweet 16 game in the regionals.
“Those years, 1998-2000 winning a lot, and then coming back in 2001-2003, we had OK teams but not great teams.”
“But we won a lot of games because they didn’t know that they were supposed to lose to Wauseon or Bryan who was really good at that time, or Archbold,” Keifer said.
“Bryan really jumps out to me because they were pretty dominant, and we would walk into a locker room after a game we won and say, ‘how the heck did we pull that off?'”
“The kids at no point thought they could get beat by any of the good teams that we were supposed to lose to at that time.”
“They believed because we were Evergreen, and we were going to step on the floor and beat people. It became a culture thing with us, we were going to not just scare good teams with a close game, we counted on beating good teams.”
“Our young kids watch all that success, and they have no idea they are supposed to get beat by some teams.”
“That may be the thing that personally I’m proud of because we established a winning culture that is still going today. I’m walking away and there is still a winning culture for Evergreen basketball.”
Fayette’s Todd Mitchell has competed against Keifer on the court more than any other current coach and echoed those statements.
“Jerry has done a great job of creating a positive culture at Evergreen. His teams are always well prepared and play the game the right way.”
“Also, his players represent Evergreen well and that is a direct reflection of their coach. I wish Jerry nothing but the best in his retirement.”
There have been approximately 16,000 high school basketball coaches in the history of Ohio.
The average longevity of their tenure is 5.2 years and much of that is before social media where parents, almost all of whom have a combined total of varsity coaching wins that numbers zero, get to criticize every move a coach no matter what school they are at makes.
“People are going to be upset regardless of what you do,” Keifer said. “You always try to do the right thing for the kids. I just made sure the kids knew I had their backs and they had mine.”
“We were getting kids coming out that really didn’t care if they started or even played a lot, they just wanted to be part of the winning.”
“That is what I feel the best about is developing a winning program that has for the most part kept winning.”
Those former players still have his back. When Evergreen had a surprise pre-game ceremony to honor Keifer’s career ahead of the Vikings win over Bryan some 60-70 ex-players showed on 24-hour notice.
Many of those have moved on to have very successful careers in their field. Evergreen Athletic Director Dylan Henricks played and started on Keifer teams that won sectional titles in 2011 and 2013.
Current Delta coach Matt Brighton, who has turned the Panthers program around with consecutive winning seasons the last two years, started for three years during that span.
Another one of those was Miller, who as head coach of Trine University, won the NCAA Division III National Coach of the Year honors a couple seasons back. This year, Miller has led his Trine Thunder to the D-III Final Four.
One of Miller’s players is former Viking standout Evan Lumbrezer, a starting sophomore point guard on the 25-1 team that was knocked out of the tournament by COVID in 2020.
Lumbrezer was recently named the recipient of the NCAA’s Elite 90 Award for having the highest GPA of any player of the four teams left in Division III.
One of Keifer’s proudest moments he said was when his team in 2011 received a plaque for having the third highest grade point average out of the nearly 800 schools that play basketball in the state of Ohio.
“That was a great thing back then,” Keifer explained. “Besides being good on the floor, we were more importantly even better in the classroom.”
The Vikings won another district title in 2006 led by Chris Pfund and Andrew Pinkelman. Chad Mossing and Brock Bates were the key components of a league title team in 2009 but Keifer’s best team was in 2019-2020.
After starting the season 1-1, Evergreen rang up 24 straight wins to sweep the NWOAL and not only reach the regionals, but smack Johnstown-Monroe 64-52 to reach the Elite 8 game against perennial state-power Ottawa-Glandorf. Nate Brighton and Mason Loeffler were both 1,000-point scorers on that team.
When asked about the Vikings chances in that final game to reach the Final Four, Keifer said one of his best one-liners, “You only have to beat them once.”
That game was never played, as the day before the game the Vikings were pulled off the floor during practice and told the season was on hold and then eventually cancelled due to the COVID outbreak.
Keifer said that may have been his biggest disappointment. “Not playing the Ottawa-Glandorf game, I really would’ve, our kids would’ve and our fans too, would’ve liked to see what would’ve happened.”
“The way our fans were that year, I really wanted to see what that atmosphere would’ve been like because they were just louder than loud at the Johnstown-Monroe game.”
“That was a team that was really good, and everyone knew their role. I feel bad for the kids that they didn’t get a chance when the season was stopped.”
With all the wins and championships, Keifer said there was one game that may rival all others. The last game of the regular season this year, Keifer, Swanton coach Bruce Smith and Evergreen special education teacher Jen Hoffman cooked up a special night so that Viking student manager Dale Wolfrum, a young man on the autism spectrum, could score a basket at the beginning of the game against the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs Charlie Wood tipped the ball to Keifer’s son Eli, who passed the ball to Dale. After a crossover dribble at the foul line, Dale tossed up a shot off the glass that dropped through the net to send a full side of Viking fans and a good gathering of Bulldog fans into a frenzy.
That shot not only made a local TV news affiliate, but also reached the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dale’s favorite team.
The Cavs and Dale’s favorite player, Max Strus, set up a day where Dale would attend a Cavs game, be the ball boy in pre-game, meet the Cavs in the locker room and have a great seat at courtside.
“I was thinking about that whole thing last night,” Keifer said. “The whole thing turned out better than I could’ve imagined. Then for Lissa Guyton at TV 13 to set something up with the Cavs is just incredible.”
“You saw the clips and he is just the happiest kid I’ve ever seen. He got an autographed jersey, and an autographed hat. Besides winning district titles and league titles? Well, that moment and what happened after is right there with it.”
Swanton coach Bruce Smith has won over 500 games in his career and expressed that Keifer is about doing the right thing.
“Seven years ago, I thought I was done coaching basketball. When Jerry called and asked me to help him at Evergreen, I jumped at the opportunity to work with him.”
“Little did I know that it would be him that would help me. He helped renew my passion for coaching young men and for two years I believe we made a great team.”
“Whether things were going great or horribly wrong, Jerry was the same guy-very calm and even tempered and it allowed his teams to play with poise and confidence.”
“I owe him a debt of gratitude for allowing me to be part of his program. He has created a lasting legacy of success at Evergreen.”
“The night with Dale wasn’t basketball related,” says Keifer. “It was doing the right thing related. My parents were good people, and my dad was a good man and he always told me, ‘do the right thing’.
“I didn’t always do the right thing but there are cases I did and I’m so glad my dad instilled that in me. That night turned out great and something he will remember for the rest of his life.”
As Keifer explained, he didn’t ALWAYS do the right thing, just like a coach doesn’t win every single game. It just doesn’t happen as a coach, and it just doesn’t happen as a human being because everyone except the man upstairs has made a mistake.
However out of those previously mentioned 16,000 coaches in Ohio basketball, only 137 have won 400 games at one school, Keifer being one of that elite group that numbers less than 1% of the total.
In Jerry Keifer’s case, the success stories, the lives he affected in a positive manner, outweigh the negatives by a ton, and have for 31 years.
Still wanna be a high school basketball coach and do it for 31 years? Go for it young man and good luck!
