Mike Eisenberg won’t coach girls basketball again at Francis Lewis. But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t coach again at the high school level somewhere else again.
Eisenberg, who settled his case with the Department of Education last month after sitting in the rubber room for more than a year, has made some bad decisions. We all have. It doesn’t mean he should be prevented from doing the thing that he loves.
The charges against Eisenberg were relatively benign when you put things in perspective. He allegedly cursed at a student in his gym class in the fall of 2008. I’ve covered about 1,000 games this season – at least it feels that way – and I’ve heard a coach curse at a player in at least 50 percent of those games.
Is it right to do? Of course not. But the punishment never fit the crime in Eisenberg’s case.
What extended Eisenberg’s time in the rubber room, sources told The Post, was an investigation into money missing from the girls basketball fundraising budget right after he was reassigned in December 2008. The only thing the Special Commissioner of Investigations turned up was that Eisenberg “failed to maintain accurate records” and “failed to turn in $600.00 in proceeds from the candy sale in a timely fashion.”
Teachers have been brought in to coach after being found guilty of much more than bad paperwork. The SCI investigation brought to light that Eisenberg also allegedly asked a player to lie about how many boxes of candy she sold for the fundraiser. I have no idea if that’s true or untrue, but if he were trying to cook the books, so to speak, wouldn’t he have asked more than one girl? It isn’t like he didn’t have contact information for all of them – he was their coach.
Eisenberg can rub people the wrong way. He butted heads with the administration at Lewis for years – by that token, it’s probably a blessing in disguise for both parties that he won’t be back. But the vast majority of his players – and there have been many – loved him. In my many years covering him, I never found him to be bad for students.
There were many occasions where he busted his butt to get girls into college, and not just his own players, either. Two years ago, he made several calls to coaches in an effort to get Baruch College Campus forward Diana Choibekova more looks.
As for Eisenberg’s coaching record, it speaks for itself. In 15 years at Lewis – after a multitude of college men’s coaching stints – he took the Patriots to six PSAL city championship games at Madison Square Garden. In Murry Bergtraum’s streak of 12 straight titles, no other team met the Lady Blazers at the Garden more than once until John F. Kennedy did it for the second time this season.
All of Eisenberg’s players at Lewis went on to some form of college except for one, and she enlisted in the military. Fifteen players received some sort of free ride to school at the next level – one per year, that’s not too shabby. There’s no doubt he’s a respected member of the girls basketball coaching community.
Eisenberg is many things. He can have a temper sometimes, can be abrasive and maybe even a little paranoid. But I can name coaches in every sport in New York City that are exactly like that, even worse.
Eisenberg is also a husband, a father and a friend to many. He deserves another chance just like any of us would. Give the man a coaching job and he’ll win games and get girls into college. He might tick some people off along the way, but so be it.
The guy should be coaching again, somewhere, soon.