Enumclaw High has hired a boys basketball coach with a familiar face, bringing aboard EHS physical education and health teacher Ted Carlson.

Carlson, a Washington State University graduate who began his teaching and coaching career in 1988 in the Federal Way School District, has been an Enumclaw School District employee for 20 years. The bulk of his Enumclaw experience was spent at Thunder Mountain Middle School as a teacher while also coaching the EHS girls basketball basically from the mid-1990s through the 2008-09 season.

Enumclaw School District Human Resources Director Kathy Lockyer and EHS Assistant Principal Kevin Smith were both part of the three-month search for a coach.

During a July 29 conference call, both said they were delighted to hire someone with Carlson’s credentials, background and experience.

“We were excited to get a commitment from a guy with the trust, respect and integrity of a teacher and coach like Ted Carlson,” Smith said.

While admitting the coaching pact Carlson inked with was of the single-season variety, Lockyer was reluctant to refer to Carlson as an interim coach. “All of the coaching positions are classified positions and are therefore one-year terms that may or may not be renewed with the same person the following year,” she said.

The winter campaign will be Carlson’s maiden voyage as a boys basketball coach, but he believes the transition from guiding girls to coaching boys will not be too difficult.

“Girls or boys, basketball is basketball,” Carlson said. “There will probably be some things that I will have to adapt and adjust to,” he said, but the fundamentals are the same.”

Carlson hinted that being the runner-up in state at the Class 3A level may be a pretty tough act to follow, especially since the all-senior starting lineup of Tarren VanTrojen, Jayson Lewis, Taylor Myers, Coleman Clyde and two-time South Puget Sound League 3A MVP Riley Carel received their high school diplomas in June.

“I will be starting out with a clean slate,” Carlson said. “I am going to be looking to put the team on the floor that gives us the best chance to win and we’ll just have to see what happens from there. I can’t wait.”