Felker back for a third round at Olympic College, this time as head men's hoops coach

Paul Felker must like it at Olympic College. He’s returned to the Rangers for a third stint, now coaching the men's basketball team.

Felker, 45, who played basketball at Enumclaw High School for Hall of Fame coach Bill Hawk and was on the same team as Brian Scalabrine, who went on to play 12 years in the NBA with the Boston Celtics and earn an NBA Finals ring, was named in late June the men’s basketball coach, replacing the successful two-year tenure of Ryley Callaghan, who resigned.

Felker first came to OC to play basketball for current athletic director Barry Janusch, from 1996 to 1998. He returned to coach as an assistant to men’s coach Billy Landram, and then after four years slid over to coach the OC women’s basketball team.

Now he’s back again.

Janusch was turned on to Felker by former OC baseball coach Steve McPherson. McPherson was on a recruiting trip when he watched Felker in an Enumclaw basketball game.

“You need this kid,” McPherson told Janusch.

“Paul was a wing shooter,” says Janusch. “He was a very solid, very fundamental player, who probably averaged double figures.”

Indeed, Felker started three years for Enumclaw, was first team all-league his last two seasons, the third-leading scorer in school history and still holds the single-season record for steals.

Felker, along with Scalabrine, attended OC open gym while being recruited. It would have been quite a coup to also get the 6-foot-9 Scalabrine. But Highline was building a power under coach Joe Callero and Scalabrine and Quincy Wilder, the player of the year in the state, went there. Highline won back-to-back conference titles while Scalabrine and Wilder were there. Both of them would play two years at USC and Scalabrine then played 12 years in the NBA.

Felker, meanwhile, helped build a power at OC. His first season he averaged 11.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists. The second year, he and Landram, who redshirted his first year after leaving Navy Prep School, provided a one-two punch for a team that won its first 13 games.

Injuries, though, sidelined what was probably the best team Janusch ever assembled.

The OC Rangers were playing at Highline – Highline was ranked as the No. 1 team and OC was No. 2 – and Felker suffered an ACL injury that sidelined him for the rest of the season as OC lost.

Later in the season, Landram suffered a fracture of his foot and missed the last six games, and the Rangers struggled in the second half of the season.

The rest of Felker’s college basketball career would take place at Central Washington. He redshirted his first year, then in the next two seasons helped the Wildcats make the NCAA Division II tournament, where they made the round of 16 the first year and round of 32 the second.

Craig Murray, who was Janusch’s assistant and built Total Package, a basketball training business that also had select traveling teams, had known about Felker for several years before he came to OC the first time.

Murray said the six-foot-four Felker "Understood the game very well. He was a really good player, kind of a combo guard that could handle it, shoot it, pass it and make good decisions with the ball.”

Murray took his Total Package program to Surprise, Arizona, several years ago after learning the best doctor to treat a brain bleed that he had that was in Arizona, reeled in Felker to work with his program from 2003-2008.

It was a good fit for Felker, who while growing up in Enumclaw used to play on an outside court at a park that was located across the street from the Scalabrine home.

Scalabrine saw the guys out there playing and walked over to join in. He didn’t have experience playing the game, but Felker said you could see the potential.

“I never been around a guy that worked as hard as he did,” says Felker. “He outworked everybody”

That also explains Felker, whose dad put up a small court out back of their house when he was in the fourth grade and it became a place where Felker developed.

“I fell in love with it,” says Felker, who in seventh grade gave up other sports to concentrate on hoops.

The attention Felker has given to the sport is such that it’s extremely possible he might build a power at 1600 Chester Avenue. That would be the cherry on top for Felker, who has followed the Murray script and is building his own basketball training program, working out of Gig Harbor and at OC. Unlike Murray, he will not have travel teams.

Murray believes in Felker. That sounds good not only for his training program, but for men’s basketball at OC.

"He’s so knowledgeable about the game," says Murray, "and is a really good communicator to people so they can understand the game. He also puts in the work."

Murray was echoed by Landram, who teaches PE and has coached the Gig Harbor High School basketball team to much success in 11 years.

“I’ve known Paul since 1996 when we played on an AAU All-Star team together,” says Landram. “He’s super personable and is very knowledgeable about the game. He definitely knows the game and the Xs and Os, so I’m happy he gets the chance to put his vision on the floor.”

Felker will be helped in that vision by Christian Parrish, who played the point for four years for Landram at Gig Harbor and will do the same for OC.

Felker stopped coaching and training from 2010-2011 when he went to work for Pepsi as a sales manager. He climbed aboard the Pepsi bandwagon thanks to Jeff White, who followed his father, the late Frank White, a former OC athlete into the Pepsi business.

Now Felker will concentrate on the thing he's known most of his life – basketball. He’s training some young kids as he works to build a solid base for his program.

He is also back on the recruiting trail with the hope of building a solid and competitive base for OC men’s basketball.

“I want to build a competitive roster for community college,” he says. “There is always a lot of turnover in two-year colleges, so you have to rebuild to be competitive every year.”

He hopes to expand his recruiting to Seattle and Tacoma and build from the ground up, both with OC and with his training business.

"He’s going to be a good coach," says Janusch. "He’s very heady, understands the game very well, communicates very well."

It’s not easy in the modern world to have success in community college. But Felker has found his place, and it’s at Olympic College.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Olympic College men's basketball hires alum Paul Felker