Chaffee girls basketball team finds new success under fourth-year coach

From the moment he first set foot in the gym at Chaffee High School, all Darrin Pruitt wanted was to bring success to a girls basketball program that hadn't seen it in more than 30 years.

Now in his fourth season with the Red Devils, Pruitt finally can say he's achieved that goal, having helped Chaffee to its first district title since 1978 with a victory over Scott County Central in the Class 2 District 1 championship last Friday.

And for the first time in his career, Pruitt is leading a team -- which includes his daughter, Jordan, a senior point guard -- into the state playoffs. Chaffee will play Neelyville in a Class 2 sectional today at Liberty High School in Mountain View, Missouri.

While the journey isn't over just yet, it has been an improbable one.

"I never played basketball," Pruitt said. " It's kind of like [Jackson boys coach] Darrin Scott and some other coaches around here that didn't play either. I did play a lot on the gravel and in parks and things like that, but I never played organized basketball."

Pruitt didn't get involved in organized basketball until his oldest daughter began to show an interest in the sport around 1999.

"My oldest daughter, Ashley, we got her involved in recreational league when I had just started college, and she was probably in third grade," Pruitt said. "I actually had a guy come up to me and ask me if I was interested in coaching the recreational league because his daughter was moving up to the next division. I told him, 'Well, if you can't find anybody else.' I kind of sat there and watched him walk around the gym, and [he] never really asked anybody. He came back and told me I was coaching."

From that point on, Pruitt was hooked on basketball. He spent hours doing everything he could to make his daughter become a better player, and himself a better coach.

"It was just kind of like a bug that bit me. I learned and read and watched everything I could. I just took in as much information as I could," Pruitt said. "It took me a while to actually absorb everything. I would say it was probably about a few years in until I actually felt comfortable and felt that I was really teaching these kids something, but it just kind of grew from there."

After coaching Jordan, his youngest daughter, in recreational leagues and travel teams, Pruitt took his coaching to the next level as an assistant under then Saxony boys basketball coach Sam Sides in 2008.

Pruitt helped coach the Crusaders for three seasons before a friend told him about job openings at both Kelly and Chaffee.

"I had actually applied at both schools, Kelly and over here. Chaffee offered me a job, and Kelly offered me a job right after that," Pruitt said. "I'm kind of one of them people that sticks with their word, and I'm glad I did."

Pruitt accepted the job at Chaffee, and despite the lack of success the Red Devils had endured in recent years, Pruitt said he welcomed the idea of rebuilding a program.

"I had done some research on it before I even said I would, and I noticed it was kind of a down program," Pruitt said. "They hadn't won a bunch of ball games in a long time. I've always been one of those people that are up for a challenge. The records where you have winning seasons, don't lose games and stuff, those are great, but I like the challenge, too."

Jordan Pruitt said she wasn't as positive as her father at first, but she slowly began to buy into the program along with the rest of her teammates.

"When I first got here it seemed like a really far off goal, but every year it seemed like we got closer and closer, until this year," Jordan said.

Darrin took the challenge head on, implementing summer workouts in an effort to get more girls interested in creating a winning tradition at Chaffee. Pruitt admitted his first season was tough, but said his players just needed a little extra support.

"For me, it was really just getting them to show up and putting a ball in their hands. Sometimes it's really hard to get them to do that and they maybe lack the confidence in themselves," Pruitt said. "My first summer down here we only had four girls. I took it over in May of 2011 and we only had four girls, including Jordan going out and playing over the summer. When we got into the season I had a lot of girls that just needed to know that they had the ability to play and had someone that believed in them."

Jordan, who entered Chaffee as a freshman agreed and added that it took a few months before she started to mesh with her teammates.

"It wasn't that great, but for me, my thoughts were that it was just high school. So if it wasn't that great on the court, I'm at least going to have fun with the people I'm going to be with. I kind of looked at it in the most positive way I could and hoped that it would eventually get better," Jordan said. "That summer, the few that came out kind of helped me click with the other ones whenever our season actually started. Julia Sutterfield and her older sister Jen kind of got that going and made sure that I got to know them and could make this thing work."

Since then, things have begun to work for Jordan, who scored her 1,000th career point earlier this season and is Chaffee's leading scorer. The Red Devils also improved to 22-5 with their district title win, marking the most single-season wins in school history.

Pruitt said the real reason for Chaffee's success comes from a well-rounded team effort in every game.

"The maturity level on this team this year is just awesome," Pruitt said. "I mean, they just let things go that need to be let go, concentrate on the floor and focus on getting the job done. When it's basketball time, it's basketball time. We still have fun on the floor. You hear them laughing and making comments that sometimes me and my coaching staff don't even understand, but we just let that stuff pass and move on. As long as they've got a ball in their hands and they're shooting and doing what we're asking, we feel like we have a good shot to win."

While the district title, complete program turnaround and other accolades are all things no one on the Chaffee roster or coaching staff will ever forget, Pruitt said there is a lot more work ahead.

"The program has really come a long way. We've always had a lot of girls come out," Pruitt said. "In my four years here we've always had a varsity and JV team. And you know, the district win was nice. But to be real honest with you, even after we won it, it was just kind of like, 'Oh, we won it.' It was great to have the win for the school and the community and everything, but now we've got to move on to get something else."

The district title seems to have prepared the Red Devils for the next stage of their playoff push, according to Jordan, who said she was confident her team wouldn't experience the same slow start they did in the championship game against Scott County Central.

"Now that we've won districts, I know what it felt like to play and be nervous, and I know that was really hard," Jordan said. "So now I'm just relaxed and ready to go. And I think that goes for the rest of my team, too. We know that they're fast and any team we play now is going to be good, but I know we're good, too, so it gets me a little more excited for it."

More challenges are ahead for the Red Devils, who will face a 19-4 Neelyville team that lived up to its top-seed billing in the Class 2 District 2 tournament. The Tigers have beaten each of their last three opponents by at least 20 points.

"I think we're up for it, I think we like it. I think we've been undervalued a little bit over the season," Pruitt said. "Nobody expected us probably to be where we're at, so I think that in itself gives us a little bit of an advantage."

Pruitt acknowledged that Neelyville is fast and aggressive on defense, but said the Tigers won't be able to match up with Chaffee's offense.

"The thing with our team is we've got a bunch of shooters," Pruitt said. "You really can't box-and-one us or triangle-and-two us, and do the traditional things you can do to teams with one or two shooters. I can pull somebody off the bench to give somebody a break if I need to, and we're not going to lose momentum. That goes from inside out, post players and everything.

"This is a very well-rounded team, and I'm just blessed that this team has come along at this time. I also think this team has laid the foundation for the girls basketball program here to be good for the next several years."