Metamora reveals 'handpicked' successor to lead state championship basketball program

Justin Dehm will be the next Metamora basketball coach.

The longtime assistant was named the new Redbirds head boys basketball coach for the 2024-25 season Thursday night at the district's monthly school board meeting. Dehm will replace outgoing coach Danny Grieves, who announced in early December he would retire following this year's campaign.

“I guess I’ve always had that long-term goal,” said Dehm, who was also hired as the school’s newest physical education teacher, “but when I (joined the Metamora staff) at first, I was just excited to be helping coach Grieves, who has been a huge mentor for me most of my life.

“I wasn’t thinking at the time like, ‘One day, I’d love to be the Metamora head coach.’ I was just kind of fresh out of college and trying to figure out where I was going to go with basketball.”

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Basketball, though, has helped the former Richwoods all-stater grow the Redbirds into a perennial state power.

Dehm teamed up with Grieves before the 2013-14 season after Dehm spent a two-year stint as director of basketball operations at his alma mater Furman. Together, the pair has helped Metamora to five 20-plus win seasons, three Elite Eights as well as back-to-back Class 3A state title game appearances including the 2023 state title.

Grieves credited Dehm, who turns 36 in May, with being the offensive and defensive architect of the title-winning season. Grieves’ praise for his successor continued 10 months later.

"Handpicked? For sure," Grieves told the Journal Star when asked if Dehm was who he wanted to replace him. “There’s not a better guy in the state of Illinois to take this job over. … He’s a guy that’s been running a lot of our program since he’s been here. He’s a guy that we’re lucky to have. He’ll do a great job.

“He runs our practices. He runs our offense. He runs our defense. I’m just there to look good,” Grieves continued with a laugh, “but that’s been a gradual thing.”

Grieves lauds Dehm’s plays and schemes on both ends of the court, but says his protégé’s preparation is one of his biggest strengths.

Dehm said coaches he played for and learned from helped instill an "always-know-what’s-coming" mindset. He credits hall of fame coach Mike Ellis, former coach at Richwoods, for the meticulous study of opponents. Ellis is now coach at Evanston.

“That was one of the big things that we always did,” Dehm said. “We always had a really detailed scouting report on the other teams.

“… That was something that I really felt that I could help maybe kind of infuse into the program when I got to Metamora. … I kind of guess that was my niche.”

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Grieves says he’s surprised that another team didn’t hire Dehm earlier in his assistant’s coaching career.

“I figured somebody would pluck him out (from us),” the 13-year coach said, “and I’d figured it would be a college team. He’s just been an invaluable piece to the program. We are so lucky that he stuck around long enough …”

As for the future of Metamora basketball, don’t expect to see a lot of different things under Dehm. He says stylistically — the Xs and Os on offense and defense — won’t change, and neither will the culture of the team.

Losing Grives, however, will be the biggest adjustment.

“Obviously, he’s been the heart and soul of this program for 13 years now,” Dehm said, “and so that leadership role is obviously going to be a lot different.”

Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Metamora basketball hires Justin Dehm as coach to replace retiring Danny Grieves