Message from the Coach 

I am excited to introduce myself as the new leader of the Girls’ Basketball Program here at Kent, beginning in March 2020.  Prior to the past couple of years, I had been a Varsity Boys head coach for all 20 seasons of my coaching career.  In the spring of 2008, my wife, Teri, and I agreed to become the leaders of Kent’s Boys’ Basketball Program, a position we held for 10 years.  During that time, our program recorded the most victories in the large school classification of the NEPSAC, the country’s most competitive basketball league; and 62 of our team members between 2009-2018 went on compete athletically at academically-rigorous colleges and universities.  In 2018, I decided to step down as coach, but my head and heart were never far from the game I love, so Teri and I enthusiastically embrace this new opportunity we’ve accepted.

The objective for the Kent Girls’ Basketball Program is no less than to become the best blend of on-court excellence and academic distinction in the country.  While the design of the program is to prepare young women to succeed at the college level—athletically, academically, and socially—it is also to help prepare these young women for not just the next four years of college but for the rest of their lives.

Every decision concerning our basketball family—from determining the composition of our teams, to practice and game organization, to the development of relationships among players and coaches—is fully grounded in our Statement of Philosophy:

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

                                                                                    --Rudyard Kipling

We believe that the foundation of any successful group, from a family to a basketball team, is trust.  Indeed, as members of a team spend more time during a season with each other than with anyone else, and as a team is regularly confronted with obstacles that they can only overcome together, a team is in fact a FAMILY.

We believe that the primary job of each coach and player is to help each team member understand that she is crucial to the success of the team and reflexively, that the team both depends upon and believes in her.

We believe that teams can consistently make up for a gap in talent with greater effort, preparation, focus, will, and cohesion than their opponents, because most teams in fact do not work as hard, are not as committed, and are not as physically or mentally tough—individually or as a group—as they think.

We believe that players can be taught to be quicker through concentration and effort than they think they can be.

We believe that individual and collective toughness can only be developed through consistent communication and significant struggle.

We believe that pressure is an ever-present force that substantially influences an individual’s and a team’s performance; those who react to and apply pressure most effectively are generally the most successful.

We believe that most teams do not react well to conditions they have not practiced.

We believe that the only perfection is the vigorous and relentless pursuit of it if the focus is on the process, then the outcomes will take care of themselves.

We believe that playing for the love of the game—and having fun doing it—should always remain a primary objective.

Finally, we believe that the most successful teams are those who enforce their will on their opponents.

“There comes a point in every game when your opponent looks you in the eye, and what he sees there will determine the outcome.”

                                                                                    --Mike Krzyzewski

Contact Coach​ Jason Coulombe​         Follow us on twitter @GirlsKent