Kentridge High welcomes Zac Webb as head basketball coach

Former Enumclaw High associate head coach Zac Webb has been named the new head basketball coach for Kentridge High School.

“I was super grateful, you can use whatever adjective you want. I’ve known I wanted to coach for a long time,“ Webb said.

After a four-year playing career at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, and graduating in 2019, Webb was a grad assistant at Seattle Pacific University for a year before joining his alma mater’s staff Enumclaw High School. He graduated in 2015 from Enumclaw and played on league champions his sophomore and junior years.

Webb is taking over for legendary Kentridge basketball coach David Jamison who retired after the 2023 season after 25 years around the high school game in the state.

“When I saw Jamison was retiring it was a no-brainer to throw my name out there and see what happens,” Webb said.

Webb said Jamison has been a pillar in the area for some time.

“When I was growing up it was all Kentridge basketball and how good they have been,“ Webb said of his predecessor.

That history of excellence is something that Webb looks to continue.

“I’m super grateful that our AD (athletic director) and principal trusted me with this program. Kentridge’s AD John Flanigan basically helped build this program with Dave. … Obviously, it’s a well-kept program,” Webb said.

Kentridge last season had arguably one of the oldest rosters in the North Puget Sound League (NPSL), of the 13 players on the roster 11 of them were seniors. The other two players were juniors. Next year’s Chargers squad will be a much younger team.

“They just gotta learn how to play with and off of each other. It’s been awesome, we will get like 20-25 games this summer,” Webb said.

Webb has the team playing in the Auburn Summer League at Auburn High School. In a competitive environment, he said he’s learning so much about his team and his new home — with the goal to gel together on the court.

In terms of success, Webb said he isn’t focused on winning and losing. Rather, the strides and improvement he sees over the course of the year.

“It’s going to be hard to not focus on the wins and loses, as a competitor you want to win and it sucks to lose. I always say losing hurts the soul,“ said Webb, an English teacher at Cedar Heights Middle School in Covington, part of the Kent School District.

But Webb’s team has shown up and shown out so far this summer.

“I wanted us to show a lot of fight, be competitive and physically tough. Right off the bat, they showed that and I knew I had a special group to work with. … We’ve been competitive in pretty much every game we played in,” he said.

In his four years of coaching post-college, he said he wanted to be a sponge and soak in as much information as he could to take to his first head coaching gig. Now, the time is now for him to share his knowledge.

“I took relationship building from PLU, getting to know the kids, understanding them, meeting them where they are. Holding them accountable on and off the court. At SPU I learned how to run a program, I had so many different hats and it was one of the coolest experiences I had,” he said. “Then at Enumclaw under Coach (Terry) Johnson … I learned a lot about defensive scouting and getting concerned about matchups. A lot of little stuff that kind of goes unnoticed.”

Webb said the focus, for now, is laying a foundation of strong fundamentals, values and getting who they are as a team.

“I’m very pleased with the team, I came in and watched open gyms and film from last year and was like these guys can hoop,” Webb said.

Effort on defense might hint at the culture Zac Webb is trying to create at Kentridge. Ben Ray / The Reporter