You may know him from his old weekly recaps on the Sonoma Academy Instagram page. Or, you may know him through the Transportation Department. Most likely, you know Kevin Christensen as a basketball coach and the Assistant Athletic Director.
Christensen is in his 18th year of coaching at Sonoma Academy. Before that, he was an assistant men’s basketball coach at Sonoma State University, and before that, he played a year of professional basketball in Vienna, Austria.
His love for basketball has far deeper roots, however. He’s been playing since he was a kid and was a high school superstar in his hometown of Sacramento.
When asked to reflect on the origin of this love and whether he had any specific role models along that journey, Christensen paused, then responded, “Yeah, so this is why I think I love basketball. I grew up in Sacramento. The only professional team in Sacramento was the Kings. So as a young kid, my grandparents, my mom and dad took me to games a lot.”
Christensen was born in 1982, and the Kings moved to Sac in 1985. But Christensen said it wasn’t till the mid-90’s that he started paying attention to the team and going to games. As a high schooler, the Kings were “legit title contenders” and Christensen greatly enjoyed following the team–which “was really a lot of fun.”
Those teams were full of star players, a few of which Christensen took special interest in. Jason Williams, known by his legendary nickname “White Chocolate” was one of his role models, a player he “tried to mimic [his] game after.” He was even Jason Williams for Halloween one year!
But the main influence on his basketball development, Christensen said, was Arizona legend and NBA star Mike Bibby. According to Christensen, he made the Kings title contenders, and he was “just a point guard that could shoot the ball really well, which is kind of how [Christensen’s] game was.”
Christensen has “so many wonderful memories going to those games,” with his family, and still fondly recalls that period as “special time that helped remind [him] of the passion for the game of basketball.”
Then, coming out of high school, Christensen committed to Sonoma State University to play DIII basketball. When asked about that experience, he said, “they gave me a great opportunity to be a redshirt and prove myself. And it was a great experience there.”
Then signed a contract to play pro basketball in Vienna, Austria. After a year abroad, he decided to return to California. But he wasn’t sure what he was going to do.
He bounced around for a year or two, taking over his high school basketball team for a summer, then moving back to Sonoma County and teaching as a substitute for a U.S. History class at Petaluma High. For a moment, he thought his future would be in teaching.
Then a friend of his, who’d been an assistant coach at Sonoma State while Christensen played, was hired as head coach for the Sonoma Academy girls varsity team. “Long story short,” Christensen said, “I met with [Athletic Director Chris] Ziemer, joined here, and then was full-time the year after.”
Christensen has coached here ever since, first coaching the girls, then coaching both varsity teams until Coach Luc Martin took over the boys team. Then, he remained the girls head coach for years, overseeing one of the most successful Coyotes basketball teams ever last year. That team, which graduated six seniors, was led by Captain Ellie Stearn (‘25).
Stearn, who made the varsity team as a freshman and played under Coach Christensen for four years, said that “Kevin always poured his heart into everything he did,” especially when coaching. She says, “He saw everyone for who they were and recognized the ways in which he could bring out the best in each of us to succeed as a collective. He assigned us roles in our sets that allowed us to play within our individual limitations while letting our best skills shine.”
Outside of the gym, according to Stearn, “Kevin’s office door was always open; he was a great support system for us and always showed up when we needed it. He checked in with us when he saw us around campus and made us feel seen and that we mattered.”
Coach Christensen said that his own experiences in high school and college basketball taught him how to be the coach he is today. “And then,” he said, “you know, going and playing in college and learning how to play even more the right way. I had a really terrific high school coach as well. Then being able to share that knowledge and passion with students for the past 18 years has been just wonderful.”
He’s certainly dispensed a lot of wisdom over his time at Sonoma Academy. Stearn, who’s now playing DIII basketball at Colorado College, said “I took for granted a lot of the advice Kevin would give me. I assumed it depended on circumstance or position or skill-level. Now having a little bit of college experience, I can see that the lessons he taught me are applicable to every level of basketball… the ability to have that resilience and belief in yourself is the key to success at higher levels, and that is true for life off the court, too.”
This year, Christensen continues to make an impact, but for a different team: boys varsity. He’d been drawn back to the boys team, saying, “this last season, I head-coached the varsity girls. We had a great year, and had a really good senior class. And then I assisted with the boys’ team and was reminded how much I enjoy coaching boys, too. Coach Luc decided to step away and focus more on his admissions role. And it was just a natural step into going back to the boys’ side and then hiring Ruben Valce, who is now the girls’ coach.”
Off the court, Christensen has found other ways to share his basketball and life knowledge. Readers may be unaware that he wrote a book, titled Bench Rules, about his tenure playing basketball at SSU.
The lessons in the book are all about his time at Sonoma State. When he first arrived on campus, in his redshirt freshman year, he faced a new kind of adversity. He’d dedicated so much of the 18 years of his life to becoming a better basketball player, but he was still one of the weaker players on the team.
“At some point,” Christensen said, “every player experiences some kind of adversity. You hit some kind of adversity where you’re not as successful as you want to be.”
He was on the bench a lot, but still learned a lot of things over his five years “about how to be a better player, teammate, and a positive force on the team even without playing in the games.”
Sports, Christensen believes, can teach so many lessons–about resilience, time management, and being positive through adversity. He’s carried that positive outlook throughout his life, almost “to a fault sometimes,” saying that even if somebody does him wrong in some way, he doesn’t waste time or energy thinking about it because he “can’t control that, right?”
He initially intended for his book to be used at SSU, where he was seeing players struggling with the same issues he did. A “few coaching buddies,” however, requested he make it more available, as they wanted to use it themselves with their own teams.
Since then, his book has been used by all kinds of basketball teams and organizations, from his old high school team to Division I college teams like Stanford and international clubs like the Netherlands’s BV Aris.
In terms of advertising, “It’s all word of mouth,” he told me, “I get coaches every once in a while email me saying their team used it, like Chico State women’s basketball used it last year.”
Nowadays, though, he doesn’t think too much about the book. He’s glad he did it, and he says it’s “super cool” when he receives those emails, but as a whole he doesn’t “really worry much about it anymore.”
Christensen has other ambitions outside of his Sonoma Academy life, but in every world he “would still be a basketball coach of some kind.” If money wasn’t an issue; if he won the lottery, he’d still coach.
He’s always hoped to volunteer at a lower-level college program, maybe a school where a friend of his is coaching, and spend his time helping out with the team.
“I’d be volunteering,” he told me, “And if I won the lottery, my family and I would definitely buy a new house.
“I mean we have a great house now. Like I’m not complaining at all. We’d do something there, go on a trip and figure out the kids’ college.”
However, even if it happened right now, he said, he “would still coach here for sure.” His daughter is a freshman at SA, and his son’s in fifth grade. Christensen would only consider retiring “maybe once [his son] graduates from here in eight years.”
Until then, Coach Christensen will continue to be a friendly, familiar face around campus, leading the basketball team to another great season. As for the future, he certainly has plans.
“Maybe I’d pick up pickleball. I hear it’s really fun. I enjoy tennis too. You’d be like, where’s Coach? Why is Coach late? Oh, sorry, I had a pickleball match.”
