Coach believes Knights are on the Doorstep of breakthrough

ROYAL CITY — Pete Christensen took over as Royal High basketball coach eight years ago, and they have been a bumpy eight years. Now he’s looking mostly at a positive future.

Christensen took the job with little prior coaching experience. After the previous coach left, Christensen thought about applying but held off.

But the longer the job remained open, the more he assumed that this football town held little interest for hoops coaches with accomplished resumes.

After waiting for interest to grow, and at the urging of students, Christensen threw his hat in the ring. When his name came up he was thankful but surprised.

“I will be the first to admit that I was in over my head at the time,” he said recently.

The only experience Christensen had was the D squad in middle school. He had to make himself into a coach.

Taking a page out of football coach Wiley Allred’s book Christensen has spent a lot of time, effort and money to learn how to teach the game to others. Coaching clinics are a priority.

“I watch four or five college basketball games a week,” he said.

Those games are part of the regimen Christensen set up for himself through the years. He continues to study what college coaches do.

“I love working with the kids,” he said. “Yet there are times you have to take a deep breath and remember they are just kids, and they are learning the game also.”

Yes, Royal is a football town. Even Christensen perpetuates that image with his presence at nearly every game with his expensive state of the art camera.

Christensen takes countless photos and shares them with just about anyone, including this newspaper. Christensen is a booster of all Royal sports. He shares photos of soccer, volleyball, track, baseball, softball, tennis and golf.

The only sport Christensen can’t shoot, because he is coaching, is basketball. His wife Melanie, who is quite capable, takes care of that.

“Before I took this job, I too was sitting in the stands and wondering why it was so difficult for our kids to succeed at this game (of basketball),” Christensen said. “It wasn’t until I was in charge of teaching them that I realized that we have very athletic kids, but we don’t have a lot of basketball players.”

Christensen started to explore the differences between basketball and football. They don’t make the same demands of players.

“In football, the players play limited positions, usually a position that fits their bodies and abilities,” he said. “Every play they get a short amount of time to think about their assignments and prepare a plan to accomplish those assignments.”

“In basketball,” Christensen added, “we ask each player to play every position, and some of them get to do that on each given play. They have to adapt to different defensive and offensive attacks that change many times, even each time down the floor. Every player needs to be the quarterback, receiver and running back while they are being pushed around by the linemen.”

That’s not hard to deal with at 3A and 4A high schools, where there are football players and basketball players. At 1A and below, the enrollments are so small that you have to hope some of the football players are also hoops-savvy.

That was the case this year. Eight team members, including all five starters, came from football. But they were still playing football on Dec. 5, after all other SCAC schools had started their hoops schedules.

There weren’t enough non-footballers to have productive practices. Besides, the football-loving Christensen was photographing football until even after the final whistle of the state championship game.

“The only adaptation I have made is making sure the players have an opportunity to play an additional season during the summer,” Christensen said. “I have spent most of my summer months working with those who will be potential varsity players for the next season, but we also try to get several games for the younger players during the summer.”

If all goes as expected, Christensen will have all but three players from this year’s team returning next year. The losses include senior third-leading scorer Carson Gilbert and senior reserve Victor Villanueva.

Sam Christensen will also be lost to graduation. But he really wasn’t much of a factor. He was lost to injury midway through the season.

The returnees are the reason for excitement about next year. Corbin Christensen will be a junior, and Kaden Jenks will be a senior. They led the team in scoring with 14.1 and 13.7 averages respectively.

Either of these boys can give the team a 30-point night and jump up to a 17-20 point average. The key for both will be to split the court at all times.

At 6-2, 200, Jenks could be a monster next year in the SCAC East. On nights when he asserted himself this year, he was nearly unstoppable. He had several double-doubles and averaged 7.7 rebounds.

Corbin Christensen is also 6-2 but not quite as hefty as Jenks. He averaged 6.3 rebounds and proved his toughness as a football receiver, running back and return specialist.

Another 6-2 player who will return next year is junior-to-be Isaac Ellis, who averaged 5.5 points and 4.6 rebounds. He missed some games and saw limited duty in others because of injury.

“We have several very young players who got a lot of varsity experience this year, Christensen said. “We will be adding in new players and looking at a lot of different options throughout the summer.”

One of those young ones is Ellis’s freshman brother, Owen Ellis. He played in 22 varsity games, averaging 10 points and 3.1 rebounds a game. He is 5-11 and growing.

“I hope the kids on the JV and C Squads realize the importance of summer ball and the improvements we make during that time,” Christensen said. “Basketball is no longer a winter sport. If you want to compete at a level that will qualify us for any state competition we must compete throughout the summer months also. Basically adding another season’s worth of games to our schedule, we aim for 20-30 extra games for the varsity players during the summer.”

The truth is, Christensen said, next year’s team and starting lineup will be decided by the players. It’s during summer that the coach will start to see who really wants to be on the floor.

“There are several players who will be looked at in the summer; That is why it is important for everyone to participate in the summer,” he said. “Many of them have areas that still need some work, be it footwork, shot form, strength and conditioning, gaining a little more weight, understanding the flow of the game. I talked with several of the players at the end of the season and was fairly honest with them regarding specific items they needed to work on before next year.”

And Christensen is already thinking beyond next year. There is basketball talent coming up through the grades.

“I do know there is a new class coming in next year that has a whole group of players and some of them, though they may not be in the varsity mix, will be pushing some of the ones in front of them for playing time,” Christensen said.

“We, as a team, have a lofty goal for next year,” Christensen added. “We are ready for the next level, and I believe the players are committed to do the things necessary for us to make a run at trip to the state tournament.”

Whether the league will be tougher next year is a question. Warden, always tough in class 2B, and unknown College Place will be added to the league.

Christensen will spend this summer preparing as if the league will be tougher. And he will teach as much team play as he can. Once football starts, it’s unlikely he’ll have a chance.

The football Knights will likely start the season ranked No. 1 and could go all of the way to Tacoma again. If so, Christensen will be right there with his camera.

Then he’ll hope everyone is ready for basketball.