Northwest names its boys basketball coach
May 8, 2008 @ 11:03 a.m. by Joannaby joanna
It didn’t take Northwest long to find a replacement for boys basketball coach Eric Hofer-Holdeman, who resigned after the season. That’s probably because Northwest didn’t have to look too far.
Athletic director J. Means said this morning that assistant Chris Collins is the Grizzlies’ new coach.
I personally like the hire. Chris is a good guy — he used to work at The Eagle back in the day — and he seems to have a similar manner as Holdeman. Pretty laid back.
When I talked to J. Means, I asked him about a couple rumors that I want to put to rest now. The first is, Northwest girls coach Jerrod Handy didn’t apply for the job. Means said that he heard the rumor so much from interested coaches who were wondering if they should even apply, so he went to Handy to ask him if he was applying. Nope.
The second rumor is concerning Jerry Gerber, who didn’t apply for the job, either. Gerber, a longtime coach at Garden Plain, was Handy’s assistant this past season. When I heard the rumor he was applying, I didn’t believe it. I mean why would Gerber come back and be a head coach at a much larger school than he’d been at previously? It just didn’t make sense.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Excellent Hire!! Chris Collins will be a great coach at Northwest!!
Hopefully he makes a trip to the Ellis house soon to stay on par with the other city league coaches. JK. High school coaches don’t recruit!
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May 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
It would be nice to see the Ellis kid at NW, there are some really good kids coming into NW they might not be good next year but the future is bright with the class that is coming in.
Collins is young and energetic he will do a good job
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May 8th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Pearson from KMC actually got the job, but they were unable to find a P.E. job to go along with the coaching. He therefore, had to turn the job down.
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May 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
If the choices were Pearson and Collins…how could they make a bad choice. Sounds like win/win to me. Who cares who the job was/was not offered to.
Chris will do a great job, teach the young men much more than basketball, and provide tremendous leadership.
Go Grizzlies.
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May 12th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I agree Jack and they wouldn’t offer the job to a coach that they didn’t have a place for him to teach or work in the building. I’m sure they were looking at options to see what might open or be a possibility if Pearson was to get offered the job. But as far as him “actually got the job” and then “had to turn the job down”, NO!
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May 12th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Great Hire! Coach Collins will do a great job at Northwest. And no, he does not need to make a stop by the Ellis house! (Overated). He has a potentially great Freshman class coming in next year. A couple 6′5 kids, and four or five other really good kids that will be there next year! Most of them play on the same summer team and it is easily the best 8th grade team in the area maybe even the Midwest. It may take a couple years as they only have one kid coming back that can play at all, but future looks real bright for Coach Collins and Northwest basketball!!
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