Menlo School has chosen a coach with an impressive resume as its new boys’ basketball coach.
The Knights have hired peninsula native Keith Larsen, 58, to guide the program, said new Menlo athletic director Kris Weems.
Larsen was formerly the coach and athletic director at Menlo College before moving over to Cal State Stanislaus to become the head coach there. Before that he was an assistant coach under Mike Montgomery at Stanford (Weems was a player there at the time).
Weems said Larsen was significant in his Stanford career.
“Larsen was one of the guys my freshman year when I was struggling on the team to get playing time and I was finding school hard after coming from a public school in Kansas, who watched film with me and talked about what kind of player I wanted to become,” he said.
Added Weems: “I actually wanted to transfer and go home and he helped me to re-think it and said I’d be crazy and that’d I’d miss out on a lot of things that have nothing to do with basketball. It’s nice to have someone like that in your corner.”
At Menlo College, Larsen guided the Oaks to two conference titles and two berths in the NAIA tournament.
While at Stanford, Larsen was heavily involved in summer camps and employed his father Bill to help coach.
"I've always thought of myself as a high school basketball coach," Menlo's new coach said. "I think my strength is coaching the fundamentals and teaching and interacting with that age group. The kids change so much from their freshman to their senior year."
On the high school level, Laren coached the Woodside varsity and underclassmen teams at Mills.
Larsen replaces Delandro Leday. The Knights finished 12-14 overall last season, but 10-4 in league, good enough for third place in the West Bay Athletic League standings. Leday was the coach at Menlo since 2011-2012 after moving up from JVs to replace Weems who took a job as an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors.
Larsen grew up in San Bruno and played freshman and JV ball at Serra, then transferred to the now-defunct Crestmoor High and played two years under Pete Pontacq. He also played basketball under the late, iconic coach Lyle Newcomer at Skyline College and ran cross country as well for the Trojans.
About morphing from a college coach to running a program at a prestigious private school, Larsen said he couldn't be happier.
"It's one of the best high school jobs in the area and to get to work with Kris Weems and coach at a place where I have friends who have children there, I'm just really excited," he said. "I've had people ask me about other jobs and I've turned them down, but this is just really a good fit and I'm super excited just as I was when I started at Stanford or Menlo College or Stanislaus to get to work."
Larsen will not teach at Menlo. He is the head national recruiting scout for NCSA and will continue to do that. He currently lives in Turlock with wife Shaun. His older daughter Camilyn is a sophomore at UC Davis and his younger daughter Victoria is a volleyball star at Turlock High.
