Legendary presence: Legacy of Eimers, Murr extends beyond Dike's gym

The only two basketball titles in the history of Dike High School came during a boom period for athletics at the school in the 1980s.

The wealth of all-around talent for the Bobcats created a perfect combination with two exceptional coaches in Jerry Eimers and Tom Murr.

Hall of Fame coaches in their respective sports of boys and girls basketball, Eimers and Murr passed away within a month of each other in the late summer of 2018. They leave behind a reputation of passion for the game while staying in touch with the young men and women they influenced along the way.

"They both brought a lot of pride to the school," said former Dike athletic director Hubert Kopriva.

Bruce Dall was the co-captain and point guard for Eimers' final season as a coach in 1988 and watched Murr coach the Dike girls to the Bobcats' only girls basketball title in March of that year.

"Jerry Eimers had a big thing to do with teaching me the way the game is played," Dall added. "And Tom Murr is the one that shows you how special girls basketball is. … They really make you aspire to all that kind of path."

To that end, Dall has dedicated this season in the memory of Eimers and Murr, as the Dike-New Hartford girls look to return to the state tournament.

When the D-NH girls qualified for the state tournament in the 2017-18 season, the first state berth for the girls in the consolidated school district's history, Dall received notes of encouragement from both coaches before the Wolverines' state quarterfinal game.

"I'm always sentimental, but the passing of those two, it really hits you," Dall said. "I had just talked to [Murr] a month before and Coach Eimers was always around town. They're two huge influences in my life. They're two huge influences on so many people's lives."

Doing the right thing
 

Eimers came to Dike in 1976 after 21 years at Greene, where he taught, coached and served as the athletic director.

Kopriva was Dike’s athletic director at the time and was involved in the hiring process for Eimers, knowing him well through scrimmaging with Greene over the years as fellow coaches. Kopriva led the Dike boys to a third-place finish at state in 1967.

“He was a special basketball coach,” Kopriva said, “and he had a family that was still going to school, which were both instrumental in hiring him.”

When it came to running practice and coaching a team, Tom Teeple, a 1964 Greene grad who played basketball and baseball for Eimers, said Coach had everything in order.

“He was so organized,” Teeple said. “He’d go to practice, he had his practice schedule, and that’s what he did. ... Nothing was ever too big for him. It always seemed like he had all the answers.”

Dall noted that he learned how to run a proper practice from Eimers, and also adapted Eimers’ sense of professionalism and sportsmanship for the game.

“He’s why I always wear a suit or a jacket and a tie on the bench,” Dall said. “He ran a very structured practice. Definitely old school, it was ingrained in me.”

Kopriva added, “He was always real fair with all the kids. He was a fundamentalist, and whether they won or lost, he was always backing the kids that were playing for him, and he was an honest individual.”

The Iowa High School Athletic Association lists Eimers with a final record of 533-286 in 38 years of coaching between Onslow, Clarksville, Greene and Dike.

“He was so good at improvising,” Teeple said. “Always thinking ahead. If he sees something that isn’t working, well, call a timeout, we’re going to run something else.

“Sometimes you wouldn’t have all the talent in these small schools, but you had six or eight guys that could play and he could coach to that talent.”

In 1980, the Bobcats reached the state tournament for the first time since Kopriva’s 1967 team. Led by all-tournament team members Kevin Graves and Jim Paige, Dike powered past Paulina 70-57 in the quarterfinals, clipped Van Buren by a point in the semis and finally vanquished South Hamilton at Des Moines’ Veteran Auditorium in a triple-overtime thriller for Dike’s only basketball state title in school history. To this day, it is the only triple-overtime championship game in Iowa boys’ history. Eimers never went to the state tournament as Greene’s coach after so many close calls, but a handful of years into his stint at Dike, he had a state champion ballclub.

“He finally got there and won one,” Teeple said with a wide smile. “I was so happy for him.”

Eimers was inducted to the IHSAA Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame in 1990.

Jennifer (Eimers) Cartee was the youngest of Jerry’s seven children and the only girl of the group. While she practiced 6-on-6 basketball at Dike, she made sure to be sharp at 5-on-5 for when Christmas time rolled around. That’s when the Eimers and Kopriva families would meet for a holiday competition.

“I didn’t have to stop at two dribbles,” Cartee said with a laugh. “We all needed to know how to play.”

Both families were competitors, Kopriva said. “But we never held a grudge,” he added. “We enjoyed it, we had fun, and we all got better.”

Cartee is now a teacher and middle-school basketball coach at Western Dubuque. Wendell Eimers, one of Jerry’s sons, has led Dubuque Senior boys basketball to four state tournament berths, including a third-place finish in 2013.

“Dad definitely helped all of us to love sports in general, no matter what sport it was, he was there to help us,” Cartee said. “He coached all boys sports but he always had time to help me. In fact, in between my junior and senior year, he helped me change my shot over the summer so I could release it quicker.”

Jenn Eimers was preparing for her senior year with Dike’s latest head coach for 6-on-6, a coach looking for a breakthrough: Tom Murr.

“Are we having fun yet?”

Tom Murr took the Dike 6-on-6 position ahead of the 1985-86 season while he taught at Waterloo East High School, which was also one of several schools where Murr coached sports in a career that spanned 39 years.“The first time I met him was at a softball game the summer before he came in and I was told he would be the new basketball coach at Dike,” Lori (Simpson) Fincher said. “At that point in time I was not going to return to play basketball, I wasn’t happy. But we got a new coach, so I decided I’d continue to go back out for basketball. I’m very glad I did.”

That summer, Murr had a camp for Fincher and any other interested players. “He was so enthusiastic,” Cartee said. “Everything was wonderful, we were all wonderful. I went home with a really good feeling about what we were going to do in basketball that coming season.”

In practice, Murr gave the girls a different perspective on working hard.

“No matter the competition, he’d always ask us, ‘Are we having fun? Are you having fun yet?’," Cartee said. "It could be the hardest part of a practice, and he’d yell ‘Are you having fun?’ ... His biggest thing was that there would always be a way to make your work fun, and that was ingenious on his part.”

To the Bobcats’ credit, they bought in and earned a big reward in reaching the 6-on-6 tournament for the first time in school history in 1986. All-tournament team member Bobbi (Becker) Petersen scored 56 points in an opening-round overtime win over Tri-Center before Dike succumbed to Urbandale in an overtime second-round game.

“The biggest thing he always said was, ‘You are a winner,’” Fincher said, “and that sometimes you have to fail in order to succeed, that it’s OK to fail, that’s how we learn.”

The next season, Dike returned and free throws from Simpson and Eimers helped Dike to a 66-64 upset of Moravia in the first round, with Simpson scoring 28 points. She scored 31 points in the second-round match but a buzzsaw of a Ventura team, led by 6-on-6 legend Lynne Lorenzen, knocked Dike out en route to an undefeated championship season.

The following year would be Dike’s third-consecutive appearance at the state tournament, fresh off a fall season where the Bobcats had won a third straight volleyball title.

This time around, Kevin Cook, a writer for Sports Illustrated, would be in town. He was there to cover the tournament in part as a study of the 6-on-6 game that, in 1988, was only still played in Iowa and Oklahoma and yet enjoyed immense popularity, even as schools in Iowa gradually transitioned to 5-on-5.

“I didn’t expect Dike to win the tournament, but I liked that team so much,” Cook said. “The more time I spent with [Murr,] the more I liked him.”

Cook’s story, “The Iowa Girl Stands Tall,” etched the Bobcats’ title victory, and the mystique of 6-on-6 basketball in Iowa, in history.

The article served as a platform to share Murr’s story as well as the story of “Darci and Dawn”–Graves and Meester, respectively–the stars of Dike’s run through the 16-team tournament.

Cook wrote of Murr’s “lucky suit,” which Murr did not wash during Dike’s run to the 1988 state title, and a belt buckle Murr received from a trucker named Buck Hummer.

“Those are always the things that make for good storylines,” Cook said. “But he was most concerned about the girls and keeping them on track.”

The playing field was level between Dike and Southeast Polk, something 6-on-6 always had a particular way of doing. A year after the Rams had run into Ventura’s mega-star, the offensive firepower of Darci and Dawn overwhelmed the vaunted Rams defense for Dike’s only state title in history.

Murr finally got to take off that lucky jacket. He left it on the sideline as he moved to center court to wear a new jacket presented to the championship-winning head coach.

“When he got that jacket after we won, all of us were just thrilled for him,” Cartee said.

Cartee credited Murr with being able to keep the team focused and not let the Bobcats get lost in the glamour of the 6-on-6 event.

“He was sensible and level-headed – literally level-headed with that crew cut,” Cook added, laughing. “He knew that he had 2-3 terrific offensive players and if they could keep the game close they had a really good chance to win.”

Cook admits he made plans on writing Southeast Polk’s story on the bus ride home with the Rams if they were the ones who walked away from the Vets with the title.

“I had to cover my bases,” Cook said. “But I was very pleased to be on the team bus that took the team back to Dike.

“They kept their wits about them, very coolly went about this long run in the tournament. It was an incomparable experience. ... And in 30 years of sportswriting, Tom Murr was one of the people I was most pleased to meet.”

Lasting impressions

Jerry Eimers and Tom Murr also both made time for the kids they coached long after graduation. For Tom Teeple, it meant having Jerry as a regular customer at his barber shop in Parkersburg.

“Every other Tuesday, he would be sitting outside waiting for me to come to work,” Teeple said.

Eimers still watched his fair share of basketball in Dike after his retirement, keeping in touch with Kopriva and Murr as the years went on.

After graduating from Dike, Cartee went on to Graceland University in Lamoni, not far from where Murr landed at Clarke High School in Osceola, where he taught from 1990-2003 and would later lead Clarke softball to a 1995 state championship.

In addition to watching Cartee play at Graceland, Murr sold his Ford Escort to Cartee, who needed a vehicle for her student teacher jobs.

“He still had that influence,” Cartee said. “It fit me well, didn’t have a lot of miles on it and I drove it for a long time."

Murr received the Golden Plaque of Distinction from the IGHSAU in 2010.

In 2017, Dall started to put together a unique event for the Dike community: A 6-on-6 basketball benefit for Fincher, who was battling colon cancer that had spread to her liver.Dall brought in former New Hartford basketball coach Michael Bennett and Murr, returning to the area for the first time since the end of the 1988 season. Murr had kept in touch with Fincher plenty, including watching her play as part of Southern Illinois’ volleyball team after her graduation from Dike.

But there was Tom Murr, back in Dike and guiding his team through 6-on-6 basketball once again, wearing that jacket he received at center court in Des Moines nearly 30 years prior.

“That meant the world to me,” Fincher said. “Having him coach us again was the fun part, and it meant a lot to have the whole community there. Very overwhelming, very humbling.”

Cartee played against Murr in the second half when the coaches switched sides so that each got a chance to have Bennett and Murr as coaches.

“That was awesome, everyone got a chance to have Coach Murr.” Cartee said. “He had the same big personality, lovely personality. Didn’t miss a beat there.”

Cartee laughed, remembering the end of the 6-on-6 game: “And his team won the second half, too. We didn’t have anyone tall enough to guard his forwards and he just got it into the post. I was mad at him for being so competitive.”

Just over a year ago, Fincher’s hospital scans came back clean.

“I will always remember his smiling face when he would walk into the gym,” Fincher said, taking an extra beat to try and hold back tears. “He always brought that energy that made you feel good, made you want to come to practice, made you want to get better.”

Murr passed away on Aug. 10, 2018.

“Coach Murr was a very religious person: God was the center of his world,” Fincher said. “He also believed in us as people and made us believe in ourselves. He instilled that in us. ... He’ll always be a special part of my life. He helped make me the person that I am today.”

Teeple remembered a day after he returned to work from an illness in early 2018 to meet Eimers.

“I told him I got a good report [from the hospital] and he told me that his report wasn’t as good as mine, that he had found out he had four months to live,” Teeple said.

Per Eimers’ request that day, his former point guard from Greene sang “Amazing Grace” at Jerry’s funeral after his death on Sept. 6.

“He was always there, if you had a problem, not even any-thing to do with basketball, you could talk to Coach about it,” Teeple said. “It wasn’t always about Xs and Os on the basketball court.”

That’s what has stuck most with those that have crossed paths with Eimers and Murr.

“They were really teaching us about life,” Cartee said. “They both showed a very positive influence, showed what a caring person is like, a good example for us. Showing us that we need to slow down and enjoy what we have.”