By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Jeff Trame has to make a difficult decision. He just retired as a high school teacher after 35 years, but he’s not sure he wants to give up coaching right now. He has been involved with so many sports for so many years that he doesn’t know what life would be like without coaching on the high school level.
“I love all the sports and I still want to be involved in some way,” he said. “That’s what I’m messing around with in my mind right now. I still don’t know what I’ll do. I’m thinking real hard about it.”
Trame, 56, coached volleyball, boys’ basketball, slow-pitch softball and baseball while he was a teacher at Holy Cross and Scott high schools. He doubts if there’s anyone else in the area, or maybe even the state, with that combination of sports on their coaching resume.
He started coaching high school sports at Holy Cross while he was still in college. He went on to become the head volleyball coach there and led the Indians to their first and only state tournament appearance in 1988. He also coached slow-pitch softball and took charge of the Holy Cross boys’ basketball program in 1988.
In his third season as basketball coach, Holy Cross upset Holmes, 75-73, in double-overtime to win the 1991 9th Region championship. That put the Indians in the state tournament for the first time in 19 years and they made it to the semifinals.
“That wasn’t the best team I ever had, but when it all came down to it they each knew what to do,” Trame recalled. “We only played six or seven guys and yet they were able to beat Holmes in that double-overtime game. Obviously, it was one of the greatest memories of my life winning that regional championship.”
Trame became the boys’ head basketball coach at Scott in 1993 and ended up coaching volleyball, slow-pitch softball and baseball there as well over the past 24 years. The Eagles had a 181-142 record in his 11 years as basketball coach. He was an assistant coach in volleyball and softball and became head coach of the Scott baseball teams that won back-to-back 10th Region titles in 2014 and 2015.
His son, Andrew, was a senior on the 2015 baseball team that made it to the semifinals of the state tournament. He also got to coach his daughter, Lauren, while he was a volleyball assistant at Scott.
“Believe it or not, my favorite to coach was volleyball,” Trame said. “I love the game and I love the enthusiasm of the players. The girls are very coachable and they want to learn so they make you feel like you’re really helping them. It’s fun watching them work together as team.”
While he was head basketball coach at Scott and Holy Cross, Trame said he played teams coached by his younger brother, Dan, 20 times and they each won 10 of those games. When Dan became head coach at Walton-Verona, Jeff, was one of his assistant coaches for two seasons.
“I just love coaching,” Jeff said. “All the (sports) I’ve coached, I’ve really enjoyed all of them. It’s really been my life.”
Baseball team closing out banner year for Simon Kenton athletics
The Simon Kenton baseball team is closing out a successful school year for Pioneers’ athletic programs by making it to the semifinals in the last state tournament on the Kentucky high school schedule for 2016-17.
Simon Kenton teams also won regional championships in girls’ soccer, girls’ cross country, wrestling, girls’ basketball and archery to advance to statewide competition. The football team made it to the quarterfinals in the Class 6A state playoffs and finished with an 11-2 record.
The list of individual standouts on Simon Kenton teams this school year includes girls’ soccer player Abby Zoeller and girls’ basketball player Ally Niece, who were both voted first-team all-state and made commitments with NCAA Division I programs. Zoeller and Niece are two of the six nominees for the LaRosa’s Female MVP of the Year in Greater Cincinnati.
On the boys’ side, Simon Kenton senior Casey Cornett received the outstanding wrestler award at the state tournament after pinning all five of his opponents in the 170-pound weight class to finish the season with a 61-3 record. Kyle Mastin was the top finisher in the Class 3A boys’ cross country regional race for the Pioneers and posted the fastest time (16:26) among local state qualifiers in all three classes at the state meet.
It will be interesting to see how many Simon Kenton players are named to the state all-tournament team after the semifinals and championship games are played on Friday and Saturday. The leading candidate right now is junior Bailey Martin. He was the winning pitcher in the Pioneers’ quarterfinal game and he was 4-for-6 at the plate with a double and three RBI in two games.
Beechwood girls’ basketball coach resigns to take job in Ohio
Beechwood is looking for a new girls’ head basketball coach to replace Chris Gramke, who resigned after one season to take a job closer to his home.
After guiding the Tigers to a 9-16 record in his first season as a head coach in Kentucky, Gramke is leaving to the become the girls’ head coach at Oak Hills High School in Cincinnati.
“I truly loved being at Beechwood,” Gramke said in an email verifying the move. “It took a perfect storm of things for me to leave. The Oak Hills job is five minutes from my house and the chance to coach in the GMC (Greater Miami Conference), on the westside, and in an area where I grew up and am familiar with the kids and program was too good to pass up at this stage of my career.”
Beechwood will be hiring a new girls’ head basketball coach for the fourth time in the last five years. The team’s best record during that span was 14-12 in 2013-14 under coach Dick Maile.
Last season, the Tigers had three seniors in the starting lineup. One of them was guard Ally Johnson, who set a school record by scoring more than 2,000 points in her five-year varsity career.
“There is some solid young talent coming into the high school,” Gramke said. “Although it may take a year or two to make some real noise in the 9th Region, the program is definitely in better shape than we found it a year ago.”