By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
The athletic department at Beechwood High School is under new leadership with Ryan Booth taking the athletic director position after Justin Kaiser stepped down to become the school’s principal.
Booth said he will be sharing the athletic director duties with Brandon Slusher and their things-to-do list this summer includes hiring new head coaches for the baseball and girls’ basketball teams.
Chris Gramke resigned as Beechwood girls’ basketball coach after one season. He’s leaving to become the girls’ head coach at Oak Hills in Cincinnati, a school that’s close to his home.
Bob Mullins was head coach of the Beechwood baseball program the last five seasons and each of his varsity teams won 25 or more games. He left the program along with the assistant coaches who were in charge of the freshman and junior varsity baseball teams.
“I was a mutual agreement,” Booth said of Mullins’ departure. “”It was a mutual parting of ways. Everybody left on good terms.”
Beechwood was one of the most successful baseball teams in Kentucky while Mullins was head coach. The Tigers compiled a 142-49 record over the last five seasons and won two Kentucky All “A” Classic small-school state championships.
This spring, Beechwood had mostly underclassmen in the starting lineup and still finished with a 28-9 record. With all of those talented players returning, the vacant head coaching position should draw a good number of applications.
Booth said a hiring committee has been appointed to choose candidates and conduct interviews for the vacant baseball and girls’ basketball head coaching positions.
“I would say probably the girls’ basketball position will be filled within the next two weeks and the baseball one could be anywhere from the next three weeks to the next month,” Booth said.
Beechwood recently filled one head coaching vacancy by hiring Matt Behrensmeyer to take charge of the cross country program. He’s one of the top runners in Greater Cincinnati and coached distance runners on the Beechwood track team last spring.
Kozerski inducted into Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame
Holy Cross football coach Bruce Kozerski was inducted into the Kentucky Pro Football Hall of Fame on June 22 for the 12 seasons he spent as an offensive lineman for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Kozerski, who lives in Edgewood, was the starting center on the 1988 Bengals team that won the AFC championship and played in Super Bowl XXIII. He was an alternate on the AFC Pro Bowl rosters in 1988, 1989 and 1990.
After retiring from pro football, Kozerski obtained a teaching certificate and joined the faculty at Holy Cross. When the high school started a football program, he served as an assistant coach for several years before becoming head coach in 2004.
In his eighth year as head coach, Holy Cross won the 2011 Class 2A state championship. Kozerski received the Paul Brown Excellence in Coaching Award from the Bengals organization for leading the Indians to their first state title.
Last season, Holy Cross made it to the semifinals of the Class 2A state playoffs and finished with a 10-4 record. Kozerski has a 73-84 record in 13 seasons as the team’s head coach.
High school football players take part in Super Combine
Six high school football players from Northern Kentucky took part in the Blue-Gray All-American Super Combine at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
There are several combines held across the country that evaluate high school players that go through a series of workouts in front of college scouts and NFL veterans. The combines are used to select players for the Blue-Grey All-American Bowls.
Elijah McKenney, a defensive back and wide receiver for Beechwood, was the only senior among the local players that participated in the combine on July 17-18 in Canton. He had a team-high eight pass interceptions for the Tigers last season.
The five local junior players were running backs Christian Webster of Conner, Christopher Collins of Cooper and Johnny Martin of Walton-Verona along with defensive back Anthony Butts of Walton-Verona and linebacker Ayden Camp of Conner.
Robertson among finalists for Coach of the Year in boys’ soccer
Jeremy Robertson of Covington Catholic was one of eight finalists selected for Coach of the Year in boys’ soccer by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association.
Last season, CovCath made it to the state championship final with nine first-year starters in the lineup and nearly won a second consecutive state title. Daviess County defeated the Colonels, 2-1, in a sudden death penalty kick shootout.
CovCath became the first Northern Kentucky boys’ soccer team to win a state championship in 2015 with Robertson as head coach. In the five years that he has been in charge of the program, the Colonels have compiled an 86-27-12 record that includes a 26-4 mark in playoff games.