J. Sterling Morton School District 201

Tom Eukovich was looking forward to a spring season away from the softball diamond, which was the result of the Berwyn resident retiring after 25 years with the Morton softball program at the end of the 2009 campaign.

Eukovich's reasons were attributed to wanting to watch his sons play baseball. Tommy will be a senior on Morton's varsity while Alex is in eighth grade at Freedom Middle School and plays travel ball.

But after first-year softball head coach Vince LaPaglia notified the Mustangs' athletic director Steve Lemon over a week ago that the recovery time of his recent knee surgery had been, and continues to be, well behind schedule, Lemon asked Eukovich to return to the program.

"He felt that he couldn't coach this season with his current physical condition," Lemon said of LaPaglia. "He will be on a leave of absence and we'll have to wait and see what he does next season."

Eukovich officially accepted an interim head coaching position for the upcoming season last Monday and gets back to work when softball tryouts begin this Monday. Since Eukovich's reason for initially stepping down was to watch his sons play baseball, he will be able to keep his family plans in his schedule because the Morton softball team will not be playing many regular season games on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"Having previous continuity should help this process," said Eukovich, who teaches special education, physical education, health and driver's education at Morton. "This should be the smoothest transition for the players and coaches. Even though I thought I was going to have the season off, I'm looking forward to it."

The 1973 Morton West graduate began working in the Mustangs' softball program during the 1984-85 school year. During his seven years as head coach, Eukovich went 159-80 with five regional titles, five 20-plus win seasons and a West Suburban Gold championship in 2005. In his first three years in the program, he was a sophomore assistant coach and eventually became an assistant coach on the varsity under Art Kasak, who is currently the softball head coach at Triton College. Eukovich took over for Kasak in 2003 and went 22-11. The Mustangs earned their third straight regional championship in 2009 and went 26-8, which was their highest win total since going 29-9 in 2005.

They return Suburban Life All-Area selection Vlasta Mangia as well as fellow seniors Mary Blaha and Clare Bukowski.

"Bringing in Tom (Eukovich) right now is the best thing for us," Lemon said. "We're fortunate to have him."