Trio of New Head Coaches Joins Titan Athletics Staff
Tacoma Community College Athletics department Titan Athletics announced new head coaches for three of the college’s six sports programs: Volleyball, Women’s Basketball, and Baseball. Get updates from Titan Athletics and find upcoming home games here.
Volleyball Head Coach: Pat Taitano
Owner and club director of Puget Sound Volleyball Academy (PSVBA) Pat Taitano has consistently maintained PSVBA’s position of one of the top club volleyball programs in Washington over the past 13 years. The PSVBA program has helped to produce 70 college athletes, including numerous All-Americans and NACC Division I players. Club highlights include many championships and top five finishes at national qualifier tournaments including Pacific Northwest Qualifier champions (18U), Southern California Qualifier champions (18U), and three time finalist at the Matt Hartner Memorial Tournament.
Taitano’s teams have won the Puget Sound Regional Championship four times, and several teams have held the overall #1 ranking. Seven of the eight years, his teams have progressed to the Junior National Championships. Taitano also has experience coaching at the high school level. He recently coached Mount Rainier High School to their first WIAA State appearance, and the team placed sixth at State the next year, and fourth the year after. Taitano is a three-time NPSL 4A Coach of the year.
Taitano earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Hawaii and is the owner of J3NP Engineering.
Women’s Basketball Head Coach: Kabre Keller
Former TCC Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach Kabre Keller will serve as Head Coach next season. Keller joined the team as Assistant Coach for the 2022-23 season. Before that he was Assistant Coach for the Bellarmine Prep Girls Basketball program (2021-2022) and was named Interim Head Coach as the team made their playoff run. Keller also led Annie Wright’s program to three district championships and a 4-th place State finish in 2020. Extremely active in Tacoma youth sports, Keller coaches AAU basketball for the Northwest Greyhounds and works for the YMCA.
Baseball Head Coach: Ian Sanderson
Ian Sanderson will be the next Head Coach of the Titan Men’s Baseball program. He served as the pitching coach for Oakland University in Michigan. Before that, he spent six years as the pitching and assistant coach for Lower Columbia College in Longview, WA, helping to coach the team to three NWAC Championships in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Prior to coaching at Lower Columbia, Sanderson was the pitching coach at the University of Antelope Valley. He was Head Coach of the Wenachee Applesox in the West Coast League. He has also served as summer pitching coach for the Victoria Harbourcats (WCL), Fort McMurray Giants (WMBL), and the Gresham Grey Wolves (WCL).
Born in Shelton, Washington, Sanderson earned his Bachelor’s Degree and Teaching Certificate from Central Washington University.