Eastern Athletic Director Barbara Burke entered winter break with a problem – Dino Babers, who led the school’s football team to its first postseason win in nearly 25 years, departed for the head coaching job at Bowling Green State University.

As names of possible choices to be Eastern’s new head coach began to be reported and Jim Davis, the head chair of the search committee, started to interview candidates, Burke saw a familiar name.

In 2011, Burke was faced with a similar task of having to hire a new football coach after Bob Spoo coached his final game for the Panthers.

Babers was ultimately hired, but Eastern’s newest coach Kim Dameron, who was introduced Saturday morning in a press conference, was almost hired in 2011.

“He was on the short list last time and he was a name I had been keeping my eye on,” Burke said.

Since 2011, Dameron has had the position of defensive coordinator at Cornell (2012) and Louisiana Tech last year. Now, he will be the head coach of a football team for the first time in his career, which began in 1983, when he was a graduate assistant at Arkansas.

Dameron said one of the biggest challenges he will face being a first-time head coach is staying true to him and not try to be like any other coach.

“I have to be myself and not try to be someone else,” he said. “Do things the way I believe in doing them because I’ve been telling myself is you get one shot at this thing and I want to do it right the first time.”

Dameron said he does not want all of the attention to be on him, emphasizing that the focus should reside on the players and how the players can get better on the field.

“I always want to keep the focus on what we’re doing on our players and making them better students, better players and better people,” Dameron said. “If we do that then we’ll be successful.”

Dameron’s first meeting with the players was Sunday night — his first opportunity to begin winning his team over, which he said will take time.

“As far as the building relationships part with the team and all of that it will take time and it’s just something you have to invest time in and so that’s what I plan on doing the next few weeks — getting to know these players,” he said.

Dameron discussed recruiting and how his philosophy of building within the state of Illinois is key to the future of the program.

“We want to start in the state of Illinois and locally then expand from there,” he said. “I have always been a big believer of you recruit most of your players within about 300 miles of your campus. For the most part, we want to be a Midwest football team.”

That does not mean Eastern’s football team will resemble a stereotypical three yards and a cloud of dust type of an offense as Dameron said.

The new offensive coordinator would continue to run a high-tempo offense, which will need playmakers at every spot.

The new head coach made it clear that although most of the recruits will come from Illinois, the speed and possible future quarterback for Eastern will come from the South.

“We want the heart of this football team to come from the state of Illinois — we want the arms and legs coming from Florida and Texas,” Dameron said.

But as Dameron begins his first days as the head coach at Eastern, his number one priority is making the current players on the roster buy in to him.

“The No. 1 thing I have to do is recruit the players that are on this campus right now,” Dameron said.

Although Dameron said his main priority is recruiting the current Panthers he could not help himself as his natural coaching instincts had already kicked in prior to his introductory press conference Saturday morning.

About 30 minutes before the 11 a.m. start time to his press conference, Dameron was on his phone, but was quickly rushed to pose for photos with his wife, Debbie, daughter, Krystle and his son-in-law Mike.

As he ended his phone call, Dameron informed Burke that he was trying to recruit a track athlete to Eastern, bringing a smile to Burke’s face.

Dameron said he knows the importance of recruiting, as he had already looked over film of players who are on Eastern’s recruiting list.

“The guy who first hired me, Jesse Branch, when I was at Southwest Missouri and I was 26 years old told me, ‘recruiting is like shaving if you don’t do it one day they’ll notice,’” Dameron said.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].