The Foster High School boys basketball team has a new coach, James Johnson, a 1999 graduate of Federal Way High School, who has coached high school and select teams.
Johnson, a paraeducator at Foster, replaces Isaac Tucker, who coached the boys team for three seasons.
Hired as the coach last spring, Johnson has had his players doing conditioning and working out in the gym since early October.
“Early assessment is we are young with quick athletes,” he said. “If we work together and play hard, we can shock a lot of teams.”
The Bulldogs’ first game is Dec. 1 against Seattle’s Chief Sealth High School.
Johnson, who grew up in Federal Way, played forward and center for Federal Way High School. He had a “challenging” high school career, twice tearing his ACL, he said.
“Luckily, I played for great coaches,” he said, Jerome Collins at Federal Way and Jasen Baskett with Emerald City Basketball Academy.
He played a year at Olympic College, then moved to Clark Atlanta University, a small Division 2 school in Georgia, where he played for three years. He played wing, started the last two years, and was a co-captain.
He earned a degree in mass communications and is now working on a Masters in Teaching degree. He was hired as a para educator late in the summer.
He’s coached at Roosevelt, Kennedy Catholic and Mercer Island high schools.
