Stan De Lus is expected to be named the next head girls basketball coach at Etiwanda, replacing Anders Anderson who directed the Eagles for eight years.
De Lus, 42, was chosen from a wide pool of applicants. His formal appointment is pending school district board approval which should come later this week.
“This is a dream job for me,” DeLus said. “I want to continue what has been done here in the past. If it’s not broke you don’t have to fix it.”
Anderson’s teams were an impressive 185-37 overall, highlighted by a 69-1 record in Baseline League play. That loss came to Rancho Cucamonga in Anderson’s first league game as coach so DeLus inherits a 69-game league win streak.
De Lus went through an exhaustive interview process but was Anderson’s choice to follow him. He brought De Lus on to his staff last year in hope that the job would be passed to him next. DeLus coached Anderson’s daughters in travel ball with West Coast Premier so the two had a long-standing relationship.
Schools prefer to have their coaches on staff full-time if at all possible, particularly when it comes to the major sports. De Lus is not but was deemed the best candidate.
“They definitely made me earn it but that’s fine. I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he said.
DeLus, a 1993 graduate of Claremont High School, has experience at the high school and college levels. He was an assistant at Mt. SAC under Brian Crichlow from 2010 to 2016, being part of three state championship teams.
He also made the Division 1-AA championship game as head coach Canyon in 2006 and the Division 4-A title game as an assistant at Oak Park.
De Lus will take the same blueprint that made teams before his successful. Anderson has been known to play a difficult schedule and De Lus plans to even step that up a notch.
He plans to use the balance of his roster and develop talent from top to bottom the same way Anderson did with the main difference being that he plans to go a little more up-tempo at both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor.
“We’re a little more guard oriented,” he said. “That’s going to be the strength.”
There will be some holdovers from Anderson’s coaching staff as well as some newcomers. Brant Morphew will be back and serve as head junior varsity coach with Mike Jackson one of the varsity assistants.
Newcomers include Brittany Lewis, a former player at Etiwanda, who will head the freshman team and Brandy Fletcher-Daniels, a former standout at Cal Poly Pomona who will serve as Director of Basketball Operations and be a varsity assistant.
Wayne Caffey, who has coached at Diamond Ranch and Jurupa Hills, will also be a new varsity asisstant.
