Eric Kundich was in the athletic office at E.C. Central until 10 p.m. on Wednesday night. He was talking to former Cardinals great Monica Maxwell and current assistant athletic director about the future of E.C.'s girls basketball program.

Maxwell was the past, which was great. Kundich is the future, which the administration hopes will return to where it once was.

Kundich was hired recently as the new head coach, as first reported on nwi.com.

"When I talked to the girls they told me they want to win," Kundich said. "They're tired of losing. I told them we're going to do everything in our power to change things."

Kundich played point guard at Andrean, from which he graduated in 1997. He studied at Indiana University, then began teaching at E.C. in 2002. He's been a science teacher at West Side Junior High for the past six years.

Kundich was the freshman boys basketball coach at E.C. this past winter. He ran Abe Brown's system and also worked on Bobby Miles' staff beforehand. He's been E.C.'s varsity golf coach since 2005 and also runs East Chicago's Science Olympiad Program.

"Eric has so much time invested in these kids, that made this hire pretty easy," Central athletic director Billy Maldonado said. "He knows the kids and the kids know him. He has absolutely embraced this position."

Kundich replaces Ron Edmonds, who coached the Cardinals for 11 seasons and had a 149-87 record. But E.C. won only nine games the past two years and won only one sectional in Edmonds' tenure.

Therefore, Maldonado and assistant A.D. Monica Maxwell decided the program needed a fresh start.

"I've always had respect for Coach Edmonds and we got a long pretty well," Kundich said. "But some of the girls became disconnected. We had kids not coming out and we had some kids transfer. I'm excited about trying to make a change."

Kundich said he is a teacher first and he will run a tutoring program himself to help his players be as good off the court as on. He credited Edmonds' feeder system, which has a lot of talent moving up the ranks. He plans on continuing the feeder system for the younger players in the city.

But education comes first.

"They've had kids who became ineligible in the past," Kundich said. "My goal is to have every kid who comes out remain eligible for the entire season, their entire career. I want to have a full freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams.

"That way we can get as many kids out as possible."