Basketball

Head Coach:
Peter Diepenbrock
diepenbrockp@smccd.edu
650-306-3268
Bldg. 1, Room 108

Athletic Director:
Mike Garcia
garciamike@smccd.edu
650-306-3212
Fax: 650-306-3390
Bldg. 1, Room 204

2008-09 Schedule

Palo Alto H.S. Coach Takes Over Cañada Basketball

Peter Diepenbrock, who won a state basketball championship at Palo Alto High School, has been named the new coach at Cañada College. He takes over for Lamont Quattlebaum, who resigned to concentrate on teaching high school.

Diepenbrock plans on using all of his connections on the Peninsula to recruit any players who haven’t committed to colleges yet and contacting the returning freshmen to form the nucleus of his first team.

Diepenbrock said the entire hiring process was a whirlwind.

“I interviewed for the job and Linda (Hayes) calls me the same day and said, ‘We were going to wait but you blew us away,’ so that was very positive,” Diepenbrock said. “I think they felt my excitement about the challenge of getting Cañada going again.”

It will be an enormous task. In the last three years under former coach Quattlebaum, the Colts averaged eight wins per season. But if anyone can return Cañada to its former glory — the Colts actually advanced to the State Final Eight in the late 1990s before the program was disbanded for a couple of years — it’s Diepenbrock.

Known for his intensity, tactical skills, motivational techniques and booming voice, Diepenbrock spent the last 11 years coaching Palo Alto High, one of the best prep basketball teams in the Bay Area. During his tenure, the Vikings went an incredible 113-19 in the tough Santa Clara Valley De Anza Division, won five league championships and three Central Coast Section titles, including the CIF state Division II championship in 2006.

Before his stint at Palo Alto, Diepenbrock spent six years as the head coach for a women’s professional team in Denmark, two years as an assistant at U.C.-Davis and two years as the head coach at Pinewood.

A 1982 Burlingame High graduate, Diepenbrock was a four-sport letterman in basketball, baseball, tennis and cross-country, and was inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame two years ago. After a standout prep hoops career, Diepenbrock went on to play at Menlo College, earning all-league recognition as a sophomore.

He also received a recommendation from Cal coach Mike Montgomery; the two have known each other ever since Diepenbrock worked one of Montgomery’s basketball camps in 1987.

Diepenbrock can hardly wait for the 2008-09 season to start. He listed several reasons for taking the job, including the accountability aspect of coaching a college program.

“The type of responsibility that goes along with coaching a college team, I’m ready for that,” Diepenbrock said. “Can I do a good job recruiting? I’d like to think so. That question remains to be seen. I know a lot of (high school) coaches (in the area), and I feel I have good relationships and a lot of respect from them.

“Now my job is get in communication with all of them and showing them by being at their practices and games that I’m very serious about building a program. If they send players to me I’m going to take care of them and do my best to develop them and send them to four-year universities. I have a foundation (to win) and now I have to show it.”

Years ago Cañada and Skyline were perennial playoff participants and contenders to reach the State Final Eight. But times have changed, and neither program has made a postseason appearance since Skyline did it five years ago. The good news is turning around a junior college program can be done in a couple of years.

“I’m not saying I can do it overnight,” he said. “Even now we’re way behind the 8-ball (in terms of recruiting). Yes, it’s going to be a challenge, but I happen to think it can be done. It’s not like I’m trying to change the 49ers or Cubs’ culture; it’s junior college and one good recruiting class can get you going in the right direction.”