SHEFFIELD — Longtime dreams do come true.
Just ask Jeff Keith, who has been hired as the girls basketball coach at Brookside High School.
“I’m really happy about becoming the head coach at a place I call home and am able to live out my biggest wish,” he said Tuesday.
Keith, a Vermilion High School graduate, will replace Gene Leonard, who retired after several years on the job. Before coaching the varsity girls, Leonard spent several years as the school’s boys coach.
Keith’s coaching career began as a volunteer assistant coach with the Hudson High boys program 10 years ago when he was student teaching. He followed that up as an assistant to Admiral King girls coach Paul Biber.
He coached the Admirals freshmen for two years and assisted with the junior varsity and varsity teams.
Keith began teaching for the Sheffield-Sheffield Lake City Schools in 2003 before being laid off in 2005. He worked with the Sheffield Middle School boys teams during that time.
After spending a year in Arizona, Keith returned to Brookside as a computer technology teacher and began working with Leonard. This included stints as junior varsity coach and varsity assistant.
“I’ve worked with two coaches with 30-plus years of experience each,” Keith said of Biber and Leonard. “I feel very lucky as this has made all the difference in the world for me.”
Keith’s philosophy is to put pressure on the opponent at both ends of the floor, including using full-court pressure on defense.
“We have the athletes and the speed to do this,” said Keith. “This will be our primary mode of attack. We do have the personnel to run set plays, but our goal is to put our opponents under duress. We believe that our defense jump-starts our offense. Look for us to have an exciting style of basketball.
“The girls in our program have all played for me at some point. Our knowing each other very well should be a real plus for us.”
Contact Jerry Henson at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. 

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