Inside The Huskies

Former Husky Curtis Allen Takes L.A.-Area HS Coaching Job

The former UW guard played for Bob Bender and Lorenzo Romar.

Dan Raley

Former UW guard Curtis Allen will become the new Westlake High School coach in Southern California.
Former UW guard Curtis Allen will become the new Westlake High School coach in Southern California. / Brian Losness-US Presswire

Curtis Allen, a former University of Washington point guard and a college basketball assistant coach for two decades, has been named as the new head coach for Westlake High School, north of Los Angeles.

For the past six seasons, Allen was a basketball assistant for ex-Husky coach Lorenzo Romar at Pepperdine University and found himself looking for work when Romar was fired at the end of the season.

Choosing to stay in the area, Allen moves to Westlake High, which is just 15 miles from the Pepperdine campus. He takes over a program that went 24-7 for coach Kyle Kegley, who resigned after eight seasons for family and health reasons.

Romar, for that matter, took a job as an assistant coach at Loyola Marymount University on the rebound after his dismissal.

In 2005, Allen began coaching at Portland State for Ken Bone, who had been a Husky assistant coach when Allen was on the team. He next coached for Bone and Ernie Kent at Washington State for nine seasons combined before joining Romar.

Allen played his high school basketball in Tacoma, Washington, for Lincoln's Wilson High School, averaged 25 points per game as a senior and was named the state's 4A Player of the Year in 2000. He was recruited to the UW by Bob Bender, who was fired after the guard's second season in 2002 and he played his last two seasons for Romar.

As a Husky player, Allen started 51 of 117 games, coming off the bench when fellow guard Nate Robinson went from the UW football program to basketball. Allen left as the top free-throw shooter in school history at 86.7 percent (202 for 233).

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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