Longtime Miners’ assistant coach Jeff Niemi has been named the head coach of a team that has tasted a lot of success over the past half century, both in the regular season and in the Michigan High School Athletic Association playoffs.

Niemi succeeds Paul Jacobson, who had held the position since 2000. And Jacobson had taken over for the last Dick Koski, who started as head coach of the Negaunee varsity program all the way back in 1968.

Niemi, 46, has a lot of familiarity with his two predecessors, having played for Koski through the fall of 1996 before he graduated from Negaunee High School in 1997, and having coached with “Jake” pretty much ever since then as Jacobson started as a coach in the Miners’ program with Koski in that same year, 1997.

“I was so close to both of them,” Niemi said, “so it’s something I’m really looking forward to. I’m just excited to have this opportunity.”

Negaunee High School assistant football coach Jeff Niemi, left with arms crossed, stands alongside head varsity coach Paul Jacobson, center, in the second quarter of the Miners’ game against Manistique on Sept. 18, 2020, in Negaunee. Coaches were required to wear masks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that year. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

Niemi has most recently been the Miners’ varsity defensive coordinator the past three seasons, but his tenure in the football program goes back to the summer after he graduated from NHS as a middle school coach.

“I always wanted to coach, as you can tell by starting right out of high school. It’s something I really enjoy,” Niemi said in a telephone interview on Wednesday afternoon.

“But if you would’ve asked me in 1997 if I ever thought I would be the Negaunee varsity coach, I wouldn’t have been able to fathom that.

“Then over the past few years as Jake and I have talked, and him being just a little bit older than me, I knew he wouldn’t go on forever, so yeah, I’ve thought about it a bit.”

Jacobson agreed that Niemi has all the ingredients to follow in his footsteps.

“Jeff has put in the time with our program, and he knows what Negaunee football is all about,” Jacobson said in a separate phone interview Wednesday. “The last 15 years or so he’s worked pretty closely with our JV and varsity football staffs.”

Jacobson, who is also the Negaunee Public Schools athletic director, said he’s pretty proud that his entire coaching staff was made up of men who played for either Koski or himself.

Niemi has a much wider range of coaching that just football — for one, he’s been the Negaunee High School head freshman boys basketball coach also going back to 2010, and has 20 years altogether with the basketball program at Negaunee.

And he’s coached Negaunee’s middle school track team at various times to go with his teaching job in the school district instructing at both the middle school and high school in health and in physical education.

“I still plan to coach basketball,” Niemi said, adding that his son Ty is currently a high school freshman playing both football and basketball.

He added that he hopes to retain as many of Jacobson’s assistants as possible, and he doesn’t anticipate any major changes to how the football team approaches the sport.

“The main thing is to emphasize good blocking and tackling,” the new head coach said. “That’s an area we’ve always prided ourselves in.

“You can run any kind of scheme you want if you do those things well.”

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.