Routt quickly hires Joe Eilering to replace Martin

Joe Eilering knows he has big shoes to fill.

The former assistant girls’ basketball coach at Routt Catholic High School was offered the head coaching position at the school shortly after it received the written resignation of former head coach Bruce Martin Wednesday.

“I’m very excited and nervous at the same time,” Eilering said. “There’s a lot of shoes to fill.”

Eilering assisted Martin during the 2006-07 season when Routt finished third at state. Eilering also helped Martin coach the team this summer at different camps and shootouts. “It just kind of came up,” Eilering said of the coaching opportunity. “I knew the girls and knew the system, so it just kind of seemed like a logical thing to step up.”

Eilering said he will use many of the same coaching strategies that Martin employed. “I’m sure there’ll be some of my own individual things that I put in, but offensively, we’ll probably stick with it,” the new coach said. “Pretty much, we’ll try to stay the course where he’s been the last few years.”

Eilering has already requested the help of Val Creviston to be an assistant coach. Eilering has a daughter, Morgan, who will be a sophomore on the team.

“I’m comfortable with the girls, and they are with me and with Val, as well,” he said. “I think we’ll be OK.”

Eilering said that one of the toughest hurdles for the 2007-08 season will be forgetting about last year’s success and not relying on it.

“The girls and I have to realize that last year was last year. We have to create our new identity and go from there,” he said. “It’s been a great eight months since we were there at Redbird Arena, but that was last year. We’ve got to make our own new identity and start from there.”