The Snoqualmie Valley School District, Mount Si High School and the Mount Si Wildcat Basketball Booster Club announced new coaches for both the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams on Wednesday, April 27 at the Snoqualmie Ridge TPC.

Jason Griffith is the new head coach for the boys and Bob Richey is the head coach for the girls.

Both were previously coaches at Issaquah High School. Griffith left in 2015 while Richey left a year earlier due to medical issues.

“We are super grateful at the opportunity,” Griffith said Monday. “The community has given us a warm welcome, we had a great turnout last Wednesday and we got a chance to meet parents in the community and kids.”

Griffith, who has been coaching at Issaquah for the last six years, plans to carry over the qualities he feels are important to develop in young players.

“It’s a great community and I’m excited to invest in the young men and build a program from our youth up. I’ve always viewed our youth program as our foundation. There are some qualities across the board that we will instill as far as character, toughness, ability to play defense, sharing the ball, executing on offense,” Griffith said.

“Those are things that have been our mainstay at Issaquah the last six years and we will carry those over into Mount Si.”

Richey agrees and plans to make sure players start with solid fundamentals and teamwork.

“We are going to spend a lot of focus on fundamentals. I believe in it full heartedly. We are going to play hard, we are going to play smart and we are going to play together,” Richey said.

The coaches plan to get started soon and have already met with some of the parents and players. Plans are already underway for additional programs during summer to keep developing players.

“We will have some things we do as a team to get to know people, we will develop some spring and summer programs and get involved in some tournaments. More importantly I need to get in front of the girls and get some gym time,” Richey said.

Griffith has spoken with many of his players already and hopes to get started by Friday, May 6.

“I’ve had a chance to speak to most of the kids and tell them our success in the season starts now so they need to understand what it is going to take to be competitive and give ourselves the best chance to win,” Griffith said.

“I’m totally stoked and very excited to be a part of Mount Si’s program and working with the kids and developing the program.” Richey said.

Both agree that there is a lot of work ahead but the kids are up to the challenge.