Charger Guard Makes His Point -- A King Reigns In Kentridge's (Back)Court

-- KENT

Quiet intensity. It burns deep within Warren King every time he steps on the basketball court.

Come game-time, King is transformed from an easy-going, low-key guy into a consumed competitor - although most people wouldn't notice it. But Mark Stewart, one of his Kentridge High School teammates, knows him too well.

"You wouldn't know it to look at him how intense he is," Stewart said. "He doesn't show it . . . but he does everything out there. He'll go inside and get a rebound if he can. He'll do anything. He's just intense. And when you see Warren do something, you want to do it, too. He still looks quiet out there, but he gets the team motivated. He plays every day and you know he's playing to win."

And that he hates to lose. When the Chargers suffered their first loss of the season to Kent-Meridian, it ate at King, their senior point guard. He didn't like the feeling, didn't want to feel that way again and challenged his teammates accordingly.

"I would describe Warren exactly like myself," Kentridge Coach Brian Pendleton said. "That's why my love for him runs so deeply. His emotions are very similar to my emotions.

"At the end of that Kent-Meridian game, he spoke up and said, `You remember. You remember how you feel right now. I don't want to feel that way again.' He said it with a great deal of emotion and power. His eyes welled up. He wanted it very bad."

The feeling returned last Saturday, when Kentridge lost its second game of the season - again to Kent-Meridian, this time in overtime in the Class AAA West Central District tournament with a state berth on the line. Another loss tomorrow, when the Chargers play Central Kitsap at 6:30 p.m. at Auburn High School, and their dream of a state trophy will be over. The loser of that game is eliminated. The winner advances to state.

"I hate losing," King said. "I just like to win. I've pretty much won my whole life."

He has in football, a sport he gave up his sophomore year because of a back injury, won in basketball, won in baseball and even won in swimming.

He skipped junior-high basketball as a ninth-grader in order to swim with the Kentridge team (his father wanted him to earn four high-school letters) and went to district in the 500 freestyle. With King as the starting shortstop, the Chargers have reached the state playoffs the past two seasons, placing third last spring.

But King has had a bad taste in his mouth since last year's state basketball tournament, when Kentridge dropped into the consolation bracket on the second day and made a quick exit, losing to Gonzaga Prep, to finish one game short of the trophy round.

"We had them beat, and then we gave up," he said in disgust. "It was like some people didn't want to play no more."

But it was at the state tournament that King started to make a name for himself. He was approached by Mercer Island Coach Ed Pepple about playing on his prestigious Basketball Congress International team that summer.

"Against Redmond (in the quarterfinals), I really pushed the ball up the court, and he liked that," King said. "I got my recognition from that."

Said Pendleton, "He was the player more than any other who raised his play up to that (state tournament) level. That's when people knew for the first time that I had a point guard for (this) year."

King was good as a junior, sharing the team scoring lead with Phil Rosengren at 11.2 as all five starters averaged nine points or better. King averaged 5.1 assists and 2.5 steals, both team highs.

But this year, King brought his play up another notch. He played basketball nearly every day through the spring, summer and fall, a habit he actually began at the end of his sophomore season, when he played primarily with the junior varsity.

"About two years ago, I encouraged Warren to join the Renton Athletic Club, and that's where he's lived," Pendleton said. "You could go there at all hours and find Warren shooting the ball."

Baseball wound up taking a back seat to basketball last summer and King gained additional confidence playing with the BCI team, which included other top basketball players in the area.

"It just made me realize I could play with those guys," King said.

Much of his practice time was spent on improving his jump shot - or actually creating a jump shot. King originally had a set shot, launching the ball from his shoulder. With added strength, he shoots the jumper with the release above his head and is a dangerous three-point artist.

King averages 13.7 points, shooting 51.4 percent from two-point range, 46.4 percent on three-pointers and 84 percent from the free-throw line. He's also providing 7.6 assists and three steals a game.

King loves basketball and baseball equally and is hoping not to have to make a choice between them until he finds out which colleges offer him baseball scholarships this spring. But Seattle Pacific University is dangling a basketball scholarship, one King said might be difficult to pass up.

At just 5-feet-10, King doesn't have the size a lot of college basketball coaches are seeking. But Pendleton said any coach who passed him up because of his lack of height would be making a mistake.

"Warren is really a coach's dream for a one-man (point guard)," he said. "I really have to compare him to Bobby Hurley of Duke. He does what it takes to win. If any coach did that (passed on King because of his height), he'd lose when he played against Warren, because he can do things at his height to play at the college level."

And he does them all quietly, but intensively.