Clean-cut decision: Eiduke gets Grant job

Grant's new girls basketball coach sports a winning look.

He's bald.

"Thanks for pointing that out," John Eiduke said.

Actually, Eiduke just shaves his head. And, heck, why not? The looked certainly has served Grant coaches well.

Current athletic director Mark Barczak perennially had his football team in the playoff hunt, before handing over the reigns two years ago to Kurt Rous. With a shaved head last fall, Rous guided the Bulldogs to a 9-0 regular season and first-round playoff victory.

Ryan Geist, the coach of Grant's highly successful wrestling team, also goes with the clean-shaved-head look.

"I kind of fit well in that mode," Eiduke said sheepishly. "We stick together."

Eiduke, 34, whose last name is pronounced I-duke, indeed seems the right fit. Like Rous, he was a successful athlete at Grant, graduating in 1991 after starting two years at point guard for coach Tom Maple's basketball team. After graduating from the University of Dubuque in Iowa, where he played basketball, Eiduke coached and taught at Dubuque East High School.

In 1999, he returned to his high school alma mater, where he teaches social studies, U.S. history and sociology.

"The school's changed a lot," said Eiduke, who grew up in Lake Villa and now makes his home in Lakemoor with his wife, Alexandra. "It's basically doubled in size. There are a lot more kids, a lot more staff members."

Eiduke has served as Grant's sophomore boys basketball coach since the 2000-01 season and has been the head varsity boys golf coach since 2000, as well. He said he will continue to coach golf.

Eiduke, who's never coached a girls team before, replaces Tom Oeffling, who became an administrator at Grant at the start of the school year and stepped down following his ninth season as girls basketball coach. Under Oeffling, Grant became a powerhouse in Lake County, posting their sixth straight 20-win season this past winter.

The Bulldogs have won the last four North Suburban Conference Prairie Division championships and have won 25 games in each of the last two seasons.

"Obviously he's done a great job the last decade," Eiduke said of Oeffling. "We're just going to try to keep the ball rolling. We're going to go possession by possession. Everything's going to be based on defense."

Eiduke will take over a team that graduates five starters, all of whom played three years on varsity.

"We're hoping to continue what (Oeffling) started," Eiduke said. "It's a big challenge, obviously."