Fred Wilson is out as Inderkum boys basketball coach after 6 CIF playoff teams
Fred Wilson is impossible to miss.
He is a bear of a man, beloved by his players and stubborn in his approach with 300 career victories to his credit. He has coached Sacramento-area high school basketball teams for 26 years but is now taking a break after agreeing to a mutual parting of ways with the Inderkum Tigers of the Natomas Unified School District, where he was the boys head coach since the start of the 2018 season.
Wilson at Inderkum led six playoff teams, including squads that went 29-3 last season, 23-8 in 2024, 28-4 in 2023 and 28-3 in 2022, and he previously coached West Campus of the Sacramento City Unified School District to four CIF Sac-Joaquin Section championship games, winning one.
Prep coaches in California are on a year-to-year, at-will contract basis. Wilson said he and the athletic administration at Inderkum did not see “eye to eye,” though he had hoped to coach this season with the school.
Wilson is not an on-campus teacher. The school aspires to have an on-campus coach, athletic director Justin Reber said, adding, “We are looking to go in a different direction.”
Wilson said he will continue to soak in basketball, including watching twin daughters Alia and Sydney play the sport in college. They are criminal justice majors at La Sierra University in Riverside in Southern California. The girls are Monterey Trail High School graduates.
“I feel blessed,” Wilson said of his close relationship with his daughters and his coaching career in general. “Inderkum wanted to go in a different direction. It was a mutual decision. I spoke my piece (in meeting with Inderkum administrators on Thursday).”
Wilson said a late-game brawl that broke out of a CIF Northern California Regional playoff game against Riordan High in San Francisco in 2023 that led to player suspensions “was held over my head” by Inderkum administration. Riordan won the game.
“I coached for the guys,” Wilson said of his career that he anticipates resuming in the coming seasons. “I’m definitely proud of the good things that we accomplished (at West Campus and Inderkum). Basketball is a beautiful thing. Winning is beautiful, but the relationships you make is the biggest bonus, and the lives you impact lives with you forever.”