Mt. Spokane hires David Wagenblast to coach boys basketball

David Wagenblast celebrated his 40th birthday Tuesday. A few days earlier he received an early present when he was named Mt. Spokane’s boys basketball coach.

“I wanted to take what I considered to be a good job,” said Wagenblast, a nine-year assistant coach at Shadle Park. “This is a school that pretty quickly can become a basketball school. They won the GSL title in football and they’re always good in baseball. You know the athletes are there. I’m excited to get started because of that.”

Wagenblast was a finalist for the Lewis and Clark boys job last year. The last seven years he’s been the head junior varsity coach at Shadle Park. Before that he was an assistant at 6A Beaverton (Oregon) High for eight years at different levels and two years at Eastern Oregon University.

He was one of seven finalists.

“There were a lot of interesting and qualified applicants,” said Mt. Spokane athletic director Paul Kautzman, who declined to name the other finalists. “He answered everything the way we wanted and was the person we were looking for. It was the most applicants for any coaching position in the district. It was a good pool of applicants. We had a tough choice.”

Wagenblast, a math teacher at Shadle, was hired only as a coach at this point. Kautzman said the district won’t know how many teaching positions are open until early May. Wagenblast hopes to land a teaching job so he can be at Mt. Spokane full time.

“We’ve lost a good one,” Shadle varsity coach Tim Gaebe said. “He’s going to do a great job. He’s a good man, a very good teacher, a very good coach. He’s definitely ready.”

Dan Smith resigned after two seasons to spend more time with his family. Mt. Spokane was 7-36 under Smith, 1-19 this winter including 18 straight losses to finish the season.

“They don’t lose much,” Wagenblast said. “Their JV team was OK. We split with them, and their freshmen were good. And they have some good incoming freshmen. My vision is we’re going to be a lot more competitive next year and instantly more competitive overall.”