Mount Tahoma hires Stadium’s Batten as new boys basketball coach
Dominic Batten is headed from Tacoma’s north end to the south end. The former Stadium High School basketball coach is taking over as the new boys basketball coach at Mount Tahoma, where he teaches business and marketing.
Batten coached at Stadium for six seasons after coaching at Spanaway Lake High School. He said being in the building at Mount Tahoma made the job too hard to pass up. He replaces Charles Pinkett, who stepped down after last season.
“For me, I’ve never been an in-building coach,” he told The News Tribune by phone on Tuesday. “The things we can do, it just makes sense. I felt like it was the right time.”
Stadium graduated a few key seniors from last year’s team, which made it easier for Batten to leave, he said. After the latest round of re-classification, Stadium bumped up to Class 4A and joined the North Puget Sound League, despite appeals to stay in the 3A Puget Sound League with Tacoma public schools peers Lincoln, Silas and Mount Tahoma.
That meant Stadium was playing teams like Tahoma in Maple Valley, Kentwood in Covington and others in league games. To Batten, it didn’t feel the same.
“It didn’t feel right,” he said. “The kids grow up with the (other Tacoma) kids. They look forward to competing against them. There’s family ties. People come to the games. We couldn’t get people excited to watch us when we played a school like Tahoma — which is a really good program — because there’s no connection there.”
Batten said he missed the packed gyms that Tacoma rivalries bring when there are league titles on the line. Batten brings experience to the Mount Tahoma position and joins a league that should be fun in the coming years. Lincoln will be a preseason top-five team in the state in the winter under Ryan Rogers, Bellarmine turned things around quickly in Bobby Moorehead’s first year and Silas recently hired former Franklin Pierce coach John Barbee, who has close to three decades of coaching experience.
Outside of the Tacoma schools, Billy Landram usually has a contender at Gig Harbor, Allen Thomas has had several state tournament teams at Timberline and Lakes coach Matt Robles has plenty of experience, too.
“It kind of reminds me of the old Narrows (League) back in the day,” Batten said. “You don’t get any time off. Every game is gonna be a battle, every game is gonna have a huge impact on the standings. … It’s gonna be a great battle of minds. … When you think about competition, you want kids to play in leagues where you’re gonna compete every single night.”
Keith Terry has the football program rolling at Mount Tahoma after years of struggles. His T-Birds have gone to consecutive 3A state tournaments the past two seasons. Batten is hoping he can engineer a similar rise for the boys basketball team.
“We’re trying to streamline our athletes,” Batten said. “(Terry), myself and the track coach, we just felt like there was a gap with boys basketball. We’re thinking with me in that position, we could have year-round success with our athletes and have a great program, to where there’s no dropoff.”
Batten said playing defense will be a major focus for his program.
“I’m all about defense and sharing the basketball,” he said.
Mount Tahoma won’t be the favorite in Batten’s first year, but he’s ready to surprise some people.
“I think there’s a sense of pride here at Mount Tahoma,” he said. “We’re gonna be competitive. Don’t count Mount T out.”
