July 5, 2007

Lutheran South ready to hoop it up
New basketball coaches Richard Fujii and Kelsi Sousa Walker guiding new programs.
BY TIM BURT IRVINE WORLD NEWS

Lutheran South High varsity basketball coaches Richard Fujii and Kelsi Sousa Walker have begun laying the foundation for the basketball programs at the Irvine-based private school.

Fujii, 30, has served as varsity assistant and lower level coordinator at El Dorado High the past five years. Before that, he was a varsity assistant at Esperanza High.

Fujii grew up in Irvine and graduated from Woodbridge High in 1995. He earned his degree from Cal State Fullerton.

Walker has been an assistant coach at Woodbridge High. Before that she was an an all-county and all-Sea View League selection at Woodbridge, where she finished her career after playing for three years at Foothill. She played at University of North Carolina, Greensboro and wound up her career at Pt. Loma Nazarene where she helped the team reach the final four in 2005.

The two coaches seem excited about guiding the Lutheran South programs, which will compete on a junior varsity schedule next year against teams that come from schools with a similar enrollment and a varsity schedule in 2008-2009.

The teams are not yet affiliated with a league. The boys team will practice and play games at Irvine Valley College while the girls will practice and play at Concordia University.

“It’s the opportunity to start something new from the ground level that’s committed not just to basketball, but to help building young men and women grow in Christ,” said Fujii, who is single.

Fujii went into coaching, although he did not play basketball at Woodbridge.

“Growing up, I played tennis through elementary and junior high,” he said. “I’ve always loved basketball but I never played high school basketball. I love the game, I’m a student of the game. I’ve attended a lot of clinics and I’ve really grown as a high school basketball coach.”

Fujii has a definite plan for the team.

“I like to control the tempo, whether it would be playing fast or playing to a match-up or a style of play that really fits our squad,” said Fujii. “We’re looking at our squad and assessing their abilities and their talents and going from there. I love pressing and making the game into a full-court game but also controlling tempo.”

Fujii’s immediate plans are to form the team.

“Right now, we’re basically just getting the kids who have signed up in the school and have suggested an interest in playing high school basketball,” he said. “I know the theory out there is that private schools go out and recruit players. But that’s not our goal here at Lutheran South. We want to take kids who want to come to Lutheran South first for academics and secondly use athletics as a means to help them mature and learn life lessons.

“I’m super excited.”

So is Walker about her assignment.

“It’s exciting to build a program,” she said. “I wasn’t really looking for a job, I applied for it looking for the best. The one thing that attracted me to the job was that it was a Christian school. Like Richard, I have a background in youth ministry.

“I can tie my two passions in life, youth ministry and basketball, into one job. It’s kind of unbelievable.”

Walker decided she would learn plenty from Coach Eric Bangs at Woodbridge, so she joined the staff two years ago as an assistant coach.

“I’ve enjoyed it,” said Walker, who lives in Tustin with her husband Brian. “I’ve fallen more in love with the game. Basketball is a great means of really interacting with youth.”

Walker, 24, is now trying to “get to know our players. I think that’s going to be the first step, to assess the level of play and go from there.”

When she forms her team, Walker will implement the kind of strategy she believes will work.

“I love to run, I love keeping it fast tempo,” she said. “But if I had to choose any type of coaching philosophy, I would coach around a team that likes to run and get up and down, but you have to take what you have. Sometimes, you can’t play like that.”

Walker believes that the Woodbridge staff is excited for her.

“From the get-go, I don’t think they were too excited about a private school coming up in Irvine because of the potential of it taking athletes in general, which is understandable,” she said. “But I’m not looking to go steal Woodbridge players, that’s the last thing I want to be doing.”

Walker isn’t quite sure what to expect, but said fundamentals will be stressed this summer.

“We’re going to have a wide range of skill levels, so we’re going to have to start from scratch, how to play man-toman defense and how to get in a stance, just very fundamental,” Walker said.

Fujii and Walker hope in time their programs will be successful.

“Success isn’t about winning,” Walker said. “Obviously winning is more fun some times. But the bottom line is getting the athletes to play hard and to become the best they can become and hopefully there are some w’s in the process of that.”

Fujii added:

“It’s not about winning; it’s about character development and life-long lessons. Winning is truly a by-product of how hard you want to work.”