JASON PRUITT – INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1187
Website – https://gosycamores.com/sports/womens-basketball
Email – Jason.Pruitt@indstate.edu
Twitter/X – @Coachjkpruitt
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Jason Pruitt is the Women’s Basketball Associate Head Coach at Indiana State University joining Head Coach Marc Mitchell’s staff in June of 2024.
Pruitt previously served as the Women’s Basketball Head Coach at Elmhurst, where he helped the Bluejays to a nine-win improvement from the previous season while securing a spot in the CCIW Tournament for the first time since the 2018-19 season.
Pruitt’s experience also includes head coaching stops at La Verne, the University of Antelope Valley, and Bethesda University. He also spent time as the associate men’s basketball coach at Caltech and the associate head basketball coach at the NSU University School.
Prior to his time coaching, Pruitt spent a decade in the media industry in various positions at NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates.
As a player, Pruitt began his college basketball career at Calhoun Community College, where he won the NJCAA Alabama State Championship and played in the NJCAA National Championship game. He finished his collegiate athletic career with a season at Mississippi Valley State before spending his last season at Kentucky State. Pruitt was recently inducted into the Colbert County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2024 for his outstanding athletic accomplishments in the county.
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Take some notes as you listen to this episode with Jason Pruitt, Women’s Basketball Associate Head Coach at Indiana State University.
What We Discuss with Jason Pruitt
- Why the current landscape of college basketball necessitates a focus on immediate team performance rather than long-term program building
- Developing strategies to maximize player development
- Understanding player skill sets and adjusting coaching methods to fit those skills effectively
- Transitioning from a head coach to an assistant requires a mindset shift to support the head coach’s vision and strategies
- Recruiting should prioritize character and work ethic, as these traits contribute significantly to team culture and success
- Instant adaptability in team building strategies
- The dynamic nature of player transfers in college basketball requires a continuous influx of talent to maintain competitiveness
- The importance of mentorship in the coaching profession
- Effective practice planning is essential and should be flexible to accommodate the team’s current learning needs and goals
- Developing character and the ability to contribute positively to the team environment
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THANKS, JASON PRUITT
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TRANSCRIPT FOR JASON PRUITT – INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1187
[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball
[00:00:13] Jason Pruitt: No longer are the days of building a program, right? We’re trying to build a team from year to year. So I think now we just have to get the players in and maximize their skillset for the time that we’re blessed to have them. And if they decide to stay, we’re blessed. And if someone pays them more money, human nature, they’re going to leave and take their more money.
And we have to go load up and get more players to get. And I think that’s the landscape of college basketball. Now that you’re just planning your practice plan, you’re planning your game strategy to what you have right now, you can no longer plan for three, four years down the road.
[00:00:51] Mike Klinzing: Jason Pruitt is the women’s basketball associate head coach at Indiana State University, joining head coach Mark Mitchell’s staff in June of 2024.
Pruitt previously served as the women’s basketball head coach at Elmhurst University, where he helped the Blue Jays to a nine win improvement from the previous season while securing a spot in the CCIW tournament for the first time since the 20 18 20 19 season. Pruitt’s experience also includes head coaching stops at Laverne, the University of Antelope Valley and Bethesda University.
He spent time as well as the associate men’s basketball coach at Caltech and the associate head basketball coach at the NSU University School. Prior to his time coaching, Pruitt spent a decade in the media industry in various positions at NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates. As a player, Pruitt began his college basketball career at Calhoun Community College where he won the NJCAA Alabama State Championship and played in the NJCAA National Championship game.
He finished his collegiate athletic career with a season at Mississippi Valley State before spending his last season at Kentucky State Pruitt was recently inducted into the Colbert County Sports Hall of Fame class of 2024 for his outstanding athletic accomplishments in the county.
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[00:02:47] Ryan Mee: Hi, this is Ryan Mee head, men’s basketball coach at Vassar College, and you are listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast
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Take some notes as you listen to this episode. Jason Pruitt, women’s basketball Associate head coach at Indiana State University. Hello and welcome to the Hooped Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunk tonight, and we are pleased to welcome in the Associate Women’s basketball Head Coach at Indiana State University, Jason Pruitt.
Jason, welcome to the Hooped. Hey, thanks for having me. We are excited to have you on. Looking forward to diving into the interesting basketball life that you have led. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me about your first experiences with the game of basketball. What made you fall in love with it?
How’d you get introduced to it? What do you remember about that? Those early years with the game?
[00:04:21] Jason Pruitt: Man, I
[00:04:22] Mike Klinzing: sucked. I was like,
[00:04:26] Jason Sunkle: I was
[00:04:26] Mike Klinzing: horrible,
[00:04:27] Jason Sunkle: man. Like that, that might be a first. Mike. Mike. That might be a first. That is, is that a first? I’ve never,
[00:04:32] Mike Klinzing: I’ve never, I’ve had people say I wasn’t really that good of a player.
I was Okay. I don’t think anybody’s ever said they’ve sucked. So, yeah, you’re right there. Look, and you got Jason to jump in this early man. You are, you are on it, Jay.
[00:04:45] Jason Pruitt: Yeah, man, I, I wasn’t the best, what? I was always an athlete, but basketball I was more of a baseball player, so I actually started out playing baseball all my life.
I made the transition. I dibbled a little bit in junior high, not really good. Hit a late growth spurt after seventh, eighth grade. Didn’t play for a while, man. Just played baseball, strictly baseball. I actually won a babe Ruth World Series in the state of Alabama championship and made it all the way to the, the, the Bay Ruth World Series out in I think they sent us out to Missouri somewhere back then, but, came back I hit a growth spurt going into my junior year.
Tried out, made the varsity team first time won of Alabama State Championship. First time up like, hey, man. Pretty good. Average double figures. Top rebounder on that team. Played with a guy that was a candidate for Mr. Alabama. Had a good run. Then came back my senior year looking to repeat.
Wouldn’t as quite successful, made it down to the semi sectional tournament, state tournament, but actually had a good year. I think I’m around about a thousand points or near a thousand points in two years. So I figured it out real quick.
[00:05:54] Mike Klinzing: I saw in your bio you won a couple state championships at the high jumper, so I you, you, you had some athleticism there somewhere.
[00:06:03] Jason Pruitt: Yeah, man, athleticism was never the problem. like I had a football coach that was a track coach wanted me to play football. Yeah. Not that really, not that good at football was more, more like scared. I ain’t hit nobody so I’m the guy that’s run, I’m going to hop on the floor just to play like I missed a tackle because I wasn’t trying to tackle anyone.
But for the most part was very successful. Alabama state, high jump champ, two years state championship in basketball, state championship in baseball. So my dad was a state champion in football on the all decade team in Alabama. So championship it, it lived in my blood, so there was nothing new when I got involved.
[00:06:38] Mike Klinzing: How’d you go about getting better? How do you go from a kid who’s terrible at basketball when you’re little to being a kid who’s a pretty good player and gets to be able to contribute to a state championship team? What was your process for getting better?
[00:06:50] Jason Pruitt: Man, the will. The will and desire to compete. We didn’t know we were competing for, for a championship. We just know we were playing and giving it our all it’s different from these days. It wasn’t no social media back then. It was like, Hey man, you show up at the park and you playing with a bunch of older guys. You may not get back on that court if you lose or you going to get cussed out and called every name except a child of God.
if you call that team to lose and have to wait another three games to get back on the court. So I think playing with older guys my dad’s brought, my dad is originally from Detroit, so every summer. He would send me up to Detroit to work with my uncle in construction. So I learned that work ethic then.
And then I think I actually learned the game that year. I hit the ghost spurt. I want a tribute to Detroit. I learned how to play on the playgrounds in Detroit that summer before I came back to Alabama. So I think my parents did a real good job of getting me out, small town, leading Alabama muscle shows and seeing the world.
And I hit that growth spurt and that growth spurt with that athleticism in trouble that next year it’s like I was a new, a new person, new body.
[00:07:54] Mike Klinzing: How do you look at, and I know you’re coaching on the women’s side, so it’s a little bit different, but how do you look at the youth basketball landscape and the way that.
Kids of both genders kind of grow up in the game compared to the way that you grew up in the game, as you said, playing against older guys, playing at the playground, playing pickup. This is a conversation that we have a lot of times on the podcast with guys who kind of grew up in the era that you did or the era that I’m a little bit older than you, but my experience was similar to yours and that I wasn’t playing a ton of a a u basketball or playing with a coach.
I was on the playground playing with older guys and trying to work on my game that way. So just how do you look at the way you grew up in the game versus the way that sort of the youth basketball landscape
[00:08:34] Jason Pruitt: is today? what? Youth basketball, a a u wasn’t existent. If it was existent when I was growing up.
I mean, we didn’t have the money to pay those fees. So a guy named Jesse Armstead in Florence, Alabama, we got all the local high school talent around. They called it Alabama Sports Festival. So we would get all the TA top talent from high schools in the local area, and we would have a team every summer that we played.
I only got to play only two years because I only played, but I think that was a good, a good, a good team, a good introduction to real talent in basketball in the state of Alabama. I had a cousin in my house average 32 points a game miss Alabama candidate. Back then, the, the women played with the men, or the girls played with the boys.
If you could hoop, you could hoop. So it wasn’t really like we got a girls team, we got a boys team. It’s like, no, man, we hoop, we all hooping together. So I think that’s the difference in the last, now like if you can hoop, you can hoop. And if you can’t, you can’t. And back then it wasn’t like no sitting on the sideline crying for about up.
if you, if you didn’t work or you didn’t play hard, you just didn’t get to play. It ain’t like, and another thing with that Alabama Sports Festival, how people, we play these a u games and you play 10 games no matter what. Man, it was two games and you were out, you were going home, you played the next week.
You didn’t get 3, 4, 5 games here. So, so the worst thing that could happen to you is your parents spent all that money to go to a tournament and you lose the first two. Then you have to have that conversation all the way home about them wasting time and money. So it’s, it’s just landscape.
[00:10:04] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It’s totally different completely as you said with social media and just people being aware of what’s going on in different places and with different people.
It certainly has changed the way that both players, parents, coaches, everybody kind of has to approach things in a, in a different way. But thinking back to your experience, tell me about your decision when you had to make a, a choice about where you were going to go to college. Walk me through kind of what that process was like for you.
[00:10:31] Jason Pruitt: Oh man. It was crazy because my, my, my, I was on a very, very good basketball team. Off that basketball team alone, my junior year we had probably four or five guys go play division one football, ? And then so my, my experience in the choosing, like I played with Mr. Alabama candidate, so everyone that was coming to the gym to look at him, they automatically saw me.
But you have to remember, we wasn’t playing for a scholarship. We were playing for the love and support of our community back then. It’s like Friday night lights everyone in the community. That was what you did in small town Alabama. So when it came time to pick a college man, I didn’t know. Like I had a couple, my dad was very instrumental in that process.
I had no division one offers. I was a late bloomer. I had tons of division two offers and I had tons of junior college offers from some, from some of the top junior colleges in the country. my dad was like. Like, you can always go play division two. Like if they want you now, they’re going to want you later.
He was like, go play JUCO for a couple years and develop and get better. So that was the route I took. I went to the top 20 JUCO in the country, nnc, N-J-C-A-A division one. And I think we were top 25. My, my first year we were coached by ncaa hall of Famer NBA guy. And he was actually from my hometown.
And then that second year I went back, man, we went 32 and five. We lost a national junior college athletic division one national championship game. We went 35 and two, a 32 and five. I know we have some of the crazy record. We won like 27 in a row. It’s unheard of in the state of Alabama. So that was my path.
It was like when I got the offer, I remember telling my dad like, man, I don’t want to pay no basketball, I just want to go to school. And my dad looked at me and was like, Hey man, I’m not paying for you to go to college when someone is about to pay for you to go to college. He was like, you either going to go to college or you going to the military.
Oh, you guess what? I started dribbling that ball extra faster then. So I’m like, I ain’t going to the military right now. So that was, that was the decision man. My dad made it very easy. Either go play ball or go to the Army and learn some discipline. So I learned that discipline on the court.
[00:12:43] Mike Klinzing: There you go.
What were you thinking about in terms of career when you went to college? Or were you at that point just kind of thinking, Hey, this is the next step for me and I’m going to go and play some ball and go to class? Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do?
[00:12:56] Jason Pruitt: No. I knew, I knew I wanted to do something communication wise.
back then junior college, we just playing ball, going to get that associate’s degree back then I really didn’t know what associate degree was coming out. I remember my coach looking at me and he telling me, we were all questioning him, like, what we going to do with associate’s degree?
And he, he made the analogy like instead of flipping hamburgers. You go tell the person how to flip the hamburgers because this was back in 2000. I like, what, if I’m going to be there, I’m going to tell them how to flip it. I don’t want to flip it. what I mean? So, but he made it known to us that in order to go to play division one, you had to graduate with an associate’s degree.
So that was always my goal was I played the, the two years of juco, I wanted to play at the highest level that I could. So I went and I graduated and I was fortunate enough to get a full, another full scholarship because what people don’t know, back then, NJCA was full room board books, tuition and everything.
So I was fortunate enough to get another, another scholarship to the division one to Mississippi Valley State, and that’s how I landed there. But career, career-wise, once I got to Mississippi Valley, I knew I was going to be, I knew I wanted to be in TV broadcasting once I got there and everything.
So that was like an easy choice for me. No thoughts of coaching at this point, right? No, never. Never crossed my mind. Ever be a coach? No. like. I can’t even believe I’m a coach now. I’m like, man I get paid to do this every day, man, this is, this is the best thing ever. Like what? Why did I waste those first 11, 12 years in television?
I should have been doing this my whole life, ? But no, never, never, never. I’m not a career coach, not nowhere near, never even thought I would be a basketball coach. It’s just God, right place, right time, right situation, ? So that’s how I ended up. When you look back
[00:14:43] Mike Klinzing: on your time as a player, do you think at all that maybe there was some seed of coaching in the way that you thought the game, or even now when you look back on it or you’re like, nah, I was never even thinking about the game as a coach.
because there’s some guys, right, that while you’re playing, they kind of think the game as a coach and maybe they see the bigger picture of what the team’s trying to do or the strategy or like, I always equate it to me, like when I was playing, I was strictly a player. Like I never once while I was playing fought.
Man, when my career is over, I’m going to go into coaching. I was so focused as a player on what did I have to do? What was my role? How could I help our team win? Just sort of a narrow focus on that and not really worried about, well, what are the coaches doing to plan, practice, to prepare us, or all these different things.
I never thought that way. So if you look back on it, did you ever, were there any seeds of like, man, maybe I was thinking the game a little bit like a coach? Or was that not even, even when you look back, do you not see that?
[00:15:46] Jason Pruitt: No. I, I remember every coach that I was fortunate enough to play for, so you have to look.
I played for some Hall of fame coaches that all played Division one basketball that got drafted to the NBA. So I played for John Douglas, right. Single broke Wilt Chamberlain, single season scoring record of Kansas. Went on, got drafted by the Clippers. I played for Lafayette striding at Mississippi Valley State that had been in Mississippi Valley for 50 years, took Duke wire to wire.
I played my last coach when I transferred to Kentucky State. I played for Winston Bennett like Kentucky Legend won a championship with Kentucky, came off B Celtics staff at Rick Patino. So I’ve had some of the best coaches that a, that a young man could have coming up. Good role models.
But man, one thing that they always told me that I think I had, I was a natural born leader. Like, I’m a leader. I’m not a follower. I’m a, I’m a, I’m a dance to the own beat of my drum. And I had one coach told me that one time, he was like, man, you just, you have a wave of people people gravitate to you.
People want to follow you. And he is like, man if you was a preacher, you probably could pack a congregation but I just, I’m a leader man. And, and I’ve always been a leader. And I’m, I don’t want to follow, I want to lead. Like never, I never was the star player, right? I always was robbing, I’m fine being robbing but I want that last shot too.
So I never shied away from competition, so I just, I just never thought I would be a coach. never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would play coaching basketball.
[00:17:12] Mike Klinzing: Alright, so tell me about the career in tv. How do you get your first job, and then what are some of the things that you did in the, in, in the TV world and before you got into coaching?
[00:17:24] Jason Pruitt: Man. So finished up my degree at Clark Atlanta doing that fifth year of school because I didn’t I I partied a lot. I partied a little bit, so I had an extra semester of school. So I finished at Clark Atlanta. I took an internship with the CBS station there. And so I was actually in the whole entire station that whole senior year of school.
And so I actually got fortunate enough to get offered like a production role learn how to do everything, be behind the camera. A job came open in my, near my hometown in Huntsville, Alabama at the A BC affiliate. what’s funny is even back then, 20 plus, 25 plus years ago. It’s all about connections, right?
Man. I applied for the same job and they ain’t even called me back. My mom’s cousin was the superintendent of schools in that school district. I mean, she made one phone call and I ain’t even interview. They was like, Hey, man, just come to work. Your equipment’s in the corner. So I got my first full time job as a, as a news photographer at the A BC affiliate.
So I learned how to shoot news, breaking news, chase storms, cover fires, learned how to edit. I already knew how to edit video, but polished my skills there dabbled a little bit with on air, stuff figured out that wasn’t for me. And got the valuable experience that I had.
And then I took another job in at the A, B, C, I’m going to say A, B, C, in Cincinnati, WCPO. Yeah, WCPO in Cincinnati. Got hired as a full-time news photo. Same thing. News, photo talk, editor shot sports. I could always write and produce. And then I’d done that for like three years and then a opportunity came over for me to move inside.
So I took a job at the, at the CBS affiliate in Indianapolis. So I got into, I was a promotion producer for three years, meaning I wrote edit, produce, shot all in-house commercials, all in-house marketing sort of like those fun ESPN commercials you used to see on tv. I used to produce those for the local affiliates and stuff.
And then I was fortunate enough after three years I was to, to take a corporate job. So I took a job at a corporate, one of the corporate companies where I was like a director of marketing marketing promotion. Did that for a while. My wife was actually working in the same profession. We met in, back in Cincinnati at that station.
She took a job in Miami and that I got out of television. I actually got hired at a college in Miami to be the multimedia manager producer for the school of business. So everything I did at the TV station. I did for the school of business at that point. So my, my journey, it was crazy, man.
Like I said, basketball was never in the cars, man. I wanted to, to, to be in the media industry. But it’s a blessing in the, in, in disguise. Like took that job at the school in Florida they paid for my master’s degree, pay for that. Got my te got credentialed to, to teach high school in three subject areas and still was able to stay afloat and, and work as a full-time freelancer at some of the stations.
So it’s just media, sports just been enshrined in what I do.
[00:20:18] Mike Klinzing: So as you get closer to making a decision to get into coaching, was it the fact that coaching became attractive and you just had an opportunity that you couldn’t pass up? Or were you starting to. Maybe feel a little bit like, Hey, I need to do something different and get out of what I’m doing in the TV world.
Was it more what coaching was pulling you? Did coaching pull you towards it or were you pushing yourself away from the TV world? Neither.
[00:20:51] Jason Pruitt: It’s funny, neither. I was working at the college in Florida, Florida. The, they owned their own private pre-K through 12 elementary through high school on campus.
I think back then tuition was crazy. Even back then, it was north of 20,000. For me working at the school, my kids got a generous discount. So we, they got to go to school with people we normally wouldn’t be around just because I worked on campus and that school had a high school and they needed a coach for that high school.
And some of my students that were interning for me at the time had actually played at that high school. And said, Hey man, there’s a guy named by the name of Andre Torres. He’s looking for an assistant coach and over at the high school. And I was like, man, I want to coach no basketball. like I played, but I don’t want to coach.
And so they, the kid, the, they named Jeremy and Josh Mathis, and they just was only me, man, you should do it. Because I was still playing back then. And I would be in the rec center playing every day after work with all the guys and stuff. And then, man, I went and met with coach Torres. we had a good conversation I thought about it and then he hired me on like, first time ever, man, I’m a lead assistant for a private high school in Florida that’s competing for a state championship.
It’s crazy, right? How, how they work. And so then I got in it and then I liked it, man. And I was like, man, I should have been doing this forever because I couldn’t imagine I had been away from the game for so long. And then I don’t know, man, I just fell into it, man. That first year we had a real good year.
I think we were top 10 in the state of Florida. I think we were made a run to the, like Elite eight 16 or something like that. And from then the, the rest is history, .
[00:22:36] Mike Klinzing: All right. Two questions related to that. One, what was it that you liked about it once you took the job? And then second part of that question, what prior to taking the job or when those kids are bugging you, hey, come be a coach.
What was it about coaching that you thought you wouldn’t like? So what did you end up liking and what did you think you weren’t going to like before you got into it?
[00:22:59] Jason Pruitt: Man, I was just, man when you. When you are working in the media profession you have a lot of opportunities to make a lot of money on the side, like shooting, shooting weddings, shooting commercials, freelancing.
So the, the money I was making on the side was really, really good, right? So I didn’t want to take away from that. And then the timing part, right? Like, I remember the days, like I hated practice, but I played like practice. I’m like, Irish, we have to practice for what, ? So like I just knew it was going to be time consuming and but the minute that I stepped in the gym and the minute that I got back in the basketball world and I started making the connections, and you have to remember, I’m 27, 28, 29 at the time, and I’m still playing in men’s leagues and I’m around the, the high school guys and I just, it’s just like I got a new, a new lease on, on the basketball life again.
I had been away for so long that I missed it, but you really don’t mi know what you’re missing until it’s gone, until you get it again. And once I had it in my life again, I was like, oh man, this is great, man. I can’t believe this. I have been. Been shy away from this. It is not that I that I was shying away from it.
I just had never thought that, look where I’m from. You go to school, you get a degree. What you get a degree in, you get a job in, you get married, you raise a family. Right. I remember when I called and told my dad that, Hey man, I got an opportunity to coach basketball. He is like, whatcha going to do that for coach basketball?
Then you go to school, we spend all, all that degree in tv. They better make some money. ? So I just it’s just what week? Growing up in the old stuff, that’s what we, where we’re conditioned to do. Like you go to school, you get a degree. What you a degree in, you get a job, you work, you have a family, you get married and the rest of the district, right?
So it’s very, very traditional where I was from. So that was one of the paths why I never thought, because I had the opportunity to be a coach. When my junior college coach was the ad of the junior college and he was still coaching men, he asked me to come be his assistant coach. I told him, man, I don’t want to coach no basketball.
I’m going to be on tv. so I just never thought about it.
[00:25:05] Mike Klinzing: What were you good at right away as a coach? What’s something that you took to naturally as a coach? Winning
[00:25:13] Jason Pruitt: on winning, competing, winning seeking out talent holding people accountable for their actions and not, not letting people have a defeatist attitude.
I’m a good, I’m a good hype man I can take a kid that, that, that average two points and I can hype them up. They’ll think they’re 20 points score a night sometimes it’s a problem. But I’m, I’m good at pump confidence in people and I think that when, sure. You have to remember my first, so this is not like any other, right.
First time ever coaching right, was at a high school. my wife comes home and say, Hey man, we’re moving to la I’m taking a TV job in la And I look at her and we’re like, well, if we move to LA I’m going to be a basketball coach. After that first year, I’m, I’m pretty good at this. Right? And then she was like, yeah, right.
And so then I actually made a connection. My first, my first actual college basketball interview was with Michael Cooper at USC. My wife. It’s all about connections, right? My wife was working for a general manager Michael Cooper were doing their sports show. I think they just felt bad for me because I ain’t have a job.
And I was living by Coastal trying to find one. And so they just brought me in for an interview at USC. So after that interview I went through with him, any other interview has been a piece of cake. That was the hardest interview of my life. And then end up didn’t getting it, offered me a media role or something like that.
And then I remember that a guy named Dr. Oliver Eslinger was recruiting two of my kids that was, that played for me at high school. So I actually reached out to him and told him, Hey, I’m moving to LA would love to come out and help. And look, one year of high school coaching. The next year I’m an assistant coach on a men’s program at a division three and Pasadena at Cal Tech.
So that, that’s my journey one year as an assistant high school coach. Next year I’m an assistant college coach, so two, two years in, I’m already there on the, on the stage. So it is just, I mean, like I told you, all the pieces just fell in the right place. So I’m going to
[00:27:05] Mike Klinzing: ask the opposite question now. What was an area that you feel like early on in your career that you had to grow in?
What was an area that you needed to, as a coach, somebody who hadn’t kind of been that lifelong guy, thinking about coaching, what was something that you had to, had had to grow in as a coach?
[00:27:22] Jason Pruitt: Making the transition from player to coach ha having to realize I was no longer the player and I’m now the coach, so I can’t think like I’m still the player.
And that was, that was a hard transition. Like, what do you mean you can’t do a pick and roll? Gimme the ball, lemme show you. What do you mean ma making that transition? Xs and Os I always knew X’s and Os because I was a good good player. Good coaches, good transition. So that was a problem.
The, the one thing that Caltech. Helped me a lot was I actually I actually learned the business side of basketball. I actually learned the backside, the, the side that people don’t see. I had a good mentor and Dr. Esslinger and he showed me from the scheduling to the practice plans, to the anything that that’s basketball related that people take for granted or people don’t know how to do.
I literally got hands-on experience and learned all of that. That year I was at Caltech. So that’s, that’s the one thing that I, that I think I had had to learn was the basketball side of stuff. What have you learned
[00:28:23] Mike Klinzing: about being a great assistant coach in your time that you spent both as a head coach and as assistant, what do you think, in your mind makes a great assistant coach?
And obviously we’re going to talk here a little bit about the transition from you could being an assistant to, to take it over your own program. But just tell me a little bit about what, what makes a great assistant coach? What have you learned over the course of your career?
[00:28:44] Jason Pruitt: Being a good teammate, right? I think good teammate people that are good teammates in their sports that they play will be good assistant coaches.
because you understand sacrificing will, like being a good assistant coach is, is understanding that it’s your job to make your head coach look good. And it’s not a job. It’s not your job to push your own agenda. And I think that’s where too many assistant coaches fall short on after being on this side for the past year and a half now, is that I see so many young assistant coaches with so many golden aspirations where they only think it’s about, well, I’m the best play writer, I’m the best assistant.
Hey man, you lucky to get a hour in the gym with your people, man. You better learn everything else about how to run a program. And I think to piggyback on what you said, I think that’s why you see so many assistant coaches who have never been head coaches get an opportunity to move over to that next seat.
That’s why I think you see a, a low success rate because. It’s more than basketball. You have to, you, you are a company man. You’re the CEO, you’re the face of the, of the program. You’re the face of the school. You have to do it. And I think that too many people just, they, they, they, they think they know. And two, it’s time to know.
And I think that everyone should start at the bottom and work their way up. I do think that’s something that you can’t take for granted.
[00:29:59] Mike Klinzing: For. Tell me about your transition from being an assistant coach to being a head coach and what that was like for you, taking over your own program, going from being somebody who’s given suggestions, right.
And you’re the guy in the background to all of a sudden you are front and center. You are the person that not only is coaching the basketball and making all those decisions, but you’re also making all those decisions that you referenced, that you were making at Caltech under, under Doc Inger. I think that,
[00:30:27] Jason Pruitt: when I look.
When I told Doc that I was going to actually interview for that first job, he kind of looked at me like I was crazy. Like, they’re interviewing you in like one year for college coaching experience. And I’m like, yeah, I was initially approached for that job, right. And I initially was like, man, I ain’t coaching that job, man.
They won like two games last year. I don’t want that job. ? And then I remember calling my college, my junior college coach, and I told him, I was like, man, they wanted me to come take this job. And I turned it down. They only won two games. And he, he looked at me and he, I remember he said, Hey fool, they won two games.
There’s nowhere to go but up. That’s the job that you need. Yeah. so I kinda like went back and, and, and took the job, ? And I think like, man, I think that it was a blessing, man. I got to learn on the job. I got to make mistakes early in life. Where no one was watching, I could make those mistakes.
And I think that’s the, the opportunity that I got in taking that job and getting a head coaching job so early. Because you have to remember when I took that first women’s job, nobody wanted to coach women. I think three or four other people had turned their job down before I said yeah. And I got to, I actually got to learn on the job, man.
I didn’t man, like the mistakes I made. Like if I, like, I see some of the coaches, I see some of these first time coaches make these mistakes. Now I’m like, man, that sucked for you, man. You made this mistake on tv. I was making that mistake in front of like five people in the stands, ? So I just think it’s, I think it’s different man, that like I told you, I always was a leader.
Leading was never a problem. I feel like I can sell anything that I believe in. So I was selling myself and my vision to the, the young ladies that I was recruiting to that school. So I just think they just believed in me and believed in the, in the wheel to win and the wheel to learn. And I learned from them and they learned from me.
So that, that first team that I coached, I mean. We have kids the same age. I’m in baby showers, I’m in weddings so I think those first three years was probably the best three years of my life when it came to coaching, because I grew up with those players.
[00:32:32] Mike Klinzing: What’s a mistake that you made that when you look back on it, you’re like, oh man, I can’t believe that I did that back in the day in front of those five people that were sitting in the stands.
[00:32:42] Jason Pruitt: Man, I can’t believe I called timeout and didn’t have any timeouts left. I did that, I did that probably on, on, on once or twice before. remember I told you the, you had to remember you’re the coach now and no longer the player. I probably used to get a lot of texts early in the day because I just thought I was still playing and, and, and couldn’t take the competitive nature, nature of that.
And I think for the most part though, man, like little things like. I forgot to order the food. Oh, I’m supposed to do that, right? I’m, I’m on the staff. It’s only me on the staff. Like, because we have assistant coaches this like oh, I have to take the jerseys home and wash it. Oops. I forgot to wash them.
Oh my bad. Just throw them in the dryer with some dryer sheets. like little stuff like that. Did you look back on laugh like, coach, did you wash this?
[00:33:30] Jason Sunkle: Oh yeah, I wash it. Don’t worry about it. You
[00:33:32] Jason Pruitt: know, like stuff like that. I just think when it came to basketball, man, look, we’re always learning.
We’re always evolving. And those that can actually make that transition are the ones that have longevity in the game.
[00:33:46] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. There’s no doubt. I think that evolution certainly is, is key. When you think about that over the course of your career and how you’ve evolved and grown, where have, where are the places that you’ve gone to grow as a coach?
Are you going to mentors? Are you going to books? Are you going to film? Are you going to some combination of all those things? Where do you go when you think of. You growing, growing in the profession? Where have you turned? What sources have you gone
[00:34:12] Jason Pruitt: to? what, my wife, she used to buy me a lot of books.
She’s a Hoosier, right? So Hoosiers know everything about basketball. Right. so I’m a, I’m a Bobby Knight disciple, believe it or not. They were Indiana people, Indiana Hoosiers undergrad, grad school, law school. So I think I got every Bobby Knight book, every written, I got every John Wooden book, every written.
So I’m from that. I come from that Bobby Knight style of coaching. All of my coaches have been that Bobby Knight type personality. So I think early on in adjustment I had never coached women before. And I remember I had a relative that played at Ole Miss and my cousin that played in New Orleans, and I remember calling them when I was taking this women’s job and I said, Hey, I ain’t never coached no women.
How I’m supposed to coach. And I remember them looking at me. They’re like, you coach? I’m like, you coach the dudes. What do you mean? ? So I think my approach was, I have always coached my women team there. There’s no gender in basketball. If we’re basketball players, you’re not a male player or you’re not a women player.
We basketball players. So everyone has have, in my, in my families, everyone has been coached the same way. I’m just as hard on the men as I’ve been, just as hard on the women. So I don’t, I don’t see any different. I treat them all the same. So I think that’s, that’s helped me a lot. And then I got a strong man.
I got a strong group of fr a group of circle of friends, man, when it comes to the basketball world, I got X teammates that call me and laugh at me and can’t believe I’m coaching that show up at the games and laugh. They, they’re very knowledgeable. I got a former like Dre, he’s still a mentor.
Dr. Sling is still a mentor. Like my, like Coach Reed at, at Laverne is still a mentor. John Baes when I was at Amherst, ILI watched and learned a lot from him. I became a student of the Game man, and I try to watch basketball every day. Especially I watch, I watch more women’s basketball than anything because nobody is here.
But I think they, we, we execute more on our side than, and then on the men’s side, because we’re not relying on that AlleyOOP play or those backdoor dunks and stuff. And so I, I learned a lot from just watching people, man. I just watch basketball.
[00:36:22] Mike Klinzing: Do you have a favorite, I don’t know if Team coach, do you like to watch WNBA, do you like to watch other college player, other, other college teams?
Where does your interest lie when it comes to, again, picking up things that you can add to your your, your repertoire as a coach. Where, where do you go if you’re watching things on if you’re watching video, who do you like to watch?
[00:36:43] Jason Pruitt: Division three Basketball. Any divi? Any division three? Any Division three.
Good. Division three Program basketball. Because you have to remember the landscape is switching now, but. Have to remember those kids are actually playing it for the love of the game. They not, may not be as talented or or athletic as some of the, the upper levels, but the way they execute, the way they run plays and the way the team work and the dynamic of that.
I think division three is the purest form of basketball. that, that, that that’s out there right now available. And I, and I just believe, I watched a lot of Division three basketball and I always have, because you have to remember, I went from high school to Division three men’s basketball. And so it was, it’s, it’s a lot of phenomenal coaches at the division three level that could coach circle around a lot of D one people.
But they’re just comfortable and, and they’re comfortable in their skin and they’re comfortable at their level. And, and I lo I love it. I just love the X’s and O’s at that level.
[00:37:38] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I do think that it’s something that the general public doesn’t appreciate how good division three basketball is, whether you’re talking about on the men’s side or on the women’s side.
And I can probably count myself among that group. I’ve got a son that is a sophomore. He is playing at Ohio Wesleyan right now, division three basketball. And I honestly probably, Jason know more about Division three basketball now than I know about Division one college basketball, just because I’m kind of following him and his team and his league and, and just have become a, a real proponent and advocate for division three basketball.
Again, simply because I’ve just been sort of thrust into it by the fact that my son is fortunate enough to be able to, to have an experience as a college basketball player. And so I do think that after getting a chance to now go through and, and watch his games and watch not only his coaching staff, but also the coaching staff, so the teams that they play against and just the, the variety of different styles and the way teams play offensively and defensively.
Again, a as somebody who enjoys basketball and, and loves looking at it and just learning, learning the game, being able to see all these different coaches and the way that they prepare their teams and their different philosophies offensively and defensively. It’s just, it’s so much fun. And again, like I said, I become a huge proponent of Division three basketball, whereas if you went back to before my son getting involved in it, probably I had relatively next to no knowledge of Division three basketball in terms of just how good it really was.
[00:39:14] Jason Pruitt: Yeah, man, I like I told you, that was my introduction to college basketball Coaching was division three. And it was an eye opener for me because I learned how to strategize. I learned how to read defenses, learned how to read offenses. I, I basically learned everything on the fly, like at that level, man.
And I think that some people may take that for granted, but I do think that I’m, I’m a proponent that people should. Work their way up the ladder, ? And not saying that, look, my story is, is different. I definitely didn’t work my way up. I was just in the right place at right time. But once I got at that division three level, I dis division three head coach for eight years.
I was an NAIA coach for four years, what I mean? So I know what it’s like to wash them clothes, drive them vans, book that flight, ? And I just think that those are some of the skills that some people may take for granted. I did. I say, look, I see it at the division one level, now I’m here.
Right? Been here a year and a half now. I see some of these people walking in like, well, I’m supposed who? Go wash the clothes. Who supposed to do this? Who supposed to do that? They, they have no idea on what it takes to do those dirty jobs. I got a light flicker. Is that bothering it? I Is that light?
That light? No, you’re good. Flickering, bothering. I can hit that light switch. Alright.
[00:40:26] Mike Klinzing: It’s up. It’s up to you. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not bothering us. It’s all good. It’s all good on our end. All good on our end. So, so
[00:40:33] Jason Pruitt: stranger Things is about, about to come out so
[00:40:35] Jason Sunkle: I’m a stranger thing. That’s true.
You go Stranger things now You got me in. You got me in now you got me in now. Here we go. So, Mike, you those kids are
[00:40:43] Jason Pruitt: grown now, so I dunno what we going to see when they come back on the 26th, but, right. I know. I’ve been waiting for a one. Mike,
[00:40:48] Jason Sunkle: do you, have you watched any episodes of Stranger Things?
[00:40:52] Mike Klinzing: I have not.
My, Meredith, my daughter who’s a senior in college, she, well, I know I was a huge fan. I remember she was a huge fan of it. So
[00:41:01] Jason Sunkle: there was one summer we were a head start and I jokingly told her a non-real spoiler and told her that something that happened because I had watched all the episodes and she was so mad at me.
Remember that Mike? That was a good one. That was a good, I’m sure So I do remember. Yeah, she, I made up a Fake Hooked was hooked on that show for sure. Storyline, Jason. It was good. It was good. It was a good fake storyline. It was good one.
[00:41:24] Mike Klinzing: Jason. Jason likes to mess with my kids for sure. That’s one of one of his favorite things. I think they like to mess with him too. So it’s the, it’s the relationships in basketball that means stuff. That’s what it’s all, that’s really what it’s all, that’s what it’s all about. Yeah. All right. All right.
So let’s walk through, let’s walk through your, your next couple of head coaching jobs after Bethesda. You get to Antelope Valley, and then Laverne, just tell me what, what you learned. What, what was how, how did those opportunities help you to grow as a, as a coach?
[00:41:52] Jason Pruitt: like I said, at Bethesda was very fortunate.
Took over like a two win team. First year Bethesda won eight games, made the Western Region Playoffs played against teams like Point Loma Azua Pacific. This was before all their ascending to where they’re at now. had a really good recruiting class that next year, Bethesda loaded it up.
International kids, local kids, and man, we lost the National Christian College Athletic Association National Championship, went back the next year, Patel. Now this was the team that we were going to run the table, right? Man, we lost in the first round of the national tournament. Had had a change in had a change in administration had played a couple teams in the Cal Pack.
They were looking for a women’s coach. Was able to make that connection. Took the job at the University of Antelope Valley, NAI started that women’s program. Was able to take a lot of kids with me from Bethesda. Recruited a good class first year at an low valley. we won the conference and I think we were the only one, only NAI in the country that year on the west coast to be the D one that year.
Had a, had a lot of success there. Then the Cal Tech job came, I mean, I’m sorry, the University of Laverne job came over that was in the same conference as Cal Tech had applied for it. Didn’t hear anything back. Well, no. They gave me a token interview. The ad gave me a token interview. They had a change in adsd.
I got a phone call as I was leaving Antelope Valley one day going home, and it was the provost from Laverne. He was like, Hey, I heard you were a found this I just wanted to let we’re making a change in ad I’m taking over the search. Are you still interested in the job? And I’m like, yeah, well, he was like, all right, well come to campus in two days.
Went on campus fell in love with it, was able to work out a good deal and took the University of Laverne, became the, the head coach of the University of Laverne. Took over another team that they won three aims before he got there. And then was able to recruit, build a competitive program.
took them from the bottom to the top and had some. Family illness, my wife did around COVID time. Had just won the conference there and my family relocated to the Midwest during COVID to Chicago. We didn’t play during COVID. Had a good president, had a good ad. I took some admission training, became a mission counselor during COVID.
We all were making a mission calls, so I was fortunate enough to be able to, to coach in LA and live in Chicago for that year. Came back to Laverne assembled that team, made a run 24 and two before we lost the conference championship top 25 in the country, and was able to, to win another conference championship at, at that institution.
So it’s, it’s just been fortunate, man that every institution that I have touched have been able to turn it around and win a conference or regular season championship. Took over the Amherst job first year there, another program that had won nine games in three years. Was able to bring eight or nine kids with me from Los Angeles.
Chicago was a easy, was a easy pitch to get them there and was able to make the playoffs for the first time in a long time at Elmhurst. I think we finished up regular season 12 and 13. That was the most win in years there. I had a good thing going there. And then got a call from Mark Mitchell about coming and join him at Indiana State.
We had crossed paths a long time ago. he was a division three head coach that has a national championship and he done a good job of networking back then and reaching out to other fellow coaches that looked like him, that was coaching division three back then. And he just kept in contact. I remember the year before that we were in Chicago together and we were recruiting at a tournament together because he was at the University of Indianapolis and we never thought we would be, we never even talked about it or discussed it we just were, were colleagues out recruiting together.
And then I had the opportunity that many people dream of to take a division one position and become the associate head coach at Indiana State University. So, like I told you, man, my path has just been unbelievable. The, the, the grace of God has led me to every different destination.
It, it has nothing to do with anything that I have ever done as a coach, as a person. It is, it is God’s timing and it’s God saying, you need to go here. You’re going to do this. Because look, I have said plenty of times like, man, I didn’t want all these championships. Been Coach of the year so many times. I ain’t taking no nother rebuilding job.
And guess what? I get another rebuilding God. Another rebuilding job was God telling me like, look man, I’m going to tell you what to do. You don’t get to decide. So glory to God and everything that I do, man, because he has a sense of humor of putting you where he wants you to be. Even if it’s not where you want it to be, you have to follow where he tells you to go.
[00:46:45] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. All right, so that being said, before we dive into the Indiana State part of it, let’s circle back to where you were put, right? As somebody who builds a program that hasn’t won and is able to turn it around, so clearly there’s something to the ability to be able to do that. Not everybody can take over a program that has not been winning and turn it into a winner.
So as you look at your experiences of taking over programs that have not had as much success as they might’ve liked, and then being able to take them to conference championships and tournaments and, and getting them to a winning record, what ha, what do you think it is about? What you’ve been able to do.
What are the keys to, to rebuilding a losing
[00:47:40] Jason Pruitt: program? The first key is you have to know who you are as an individual. You have to know who you are as a coach, and you have to stand on what you believe in. Some of the best advice that I ever got when I first started coaching was, do what you’re good at and hire other people to do what you’re not so good at.
And I think that my career in the corporate America world has given me the, the confidence and the structure to assemble great staff. I have always had someone in a key position that picks up the slack where I’m not very good at, right? Like, I’m an offensive guy, right? I want to score, like I want to I start, I running a version of the system.
I’m trying to score 150 points if I can, right? But I always used to sleep on the defensive side. So I’ve always had very good defensive minded coaches that I hired. Like I have always had, like when I was at Laverne, I had the strength and conditioning coach of the year. Like he had won that title to get us ready.
Like special situations. I’ve always had someone that was an expert in special situations. So I have enough confidence in myself to hire people around me to get the job done, and I don’t mind delegating, right? like, I have no ego. I don’t, I just want to win and I’m going to do whatever it takes to figure it out to win.
I, when it comes to recruiting, I have a system that I run. I know how to identify talent that fits in what I do. They don’t, I don’t have to, I don’t need that 30 point score, right? I may need that, that 15 point score, I may need that eight point score, or I may need that two point score, that average eight to nine rebounds a game.
because I know once we get them in our system and I explain to them, Hey man, this is what I need you to do. This is what you can do. You either can do it or you can’t. That’s what I’m recruiting you for. I’m very upfront I use the, I use my television and corporate America, America experience to when I’m recruiting, like, this is your job and this is what I’m hiring you to do.
Can you do it? Yes or no? And I think those kids gravitate to that because outside of that, I’m very relationship based. I do something called Weekly tens. I started it before COVID where I, when I’m, when I’m the head, when I’m the head of these programs the, the players have to call me once a week for 10 minutes and we talk about everything except basketball, right?
They’re not allowed to talk basketball. Like once, once I leave the gym, we’re done. We, they can’t talk basketball to me unless they set an appointment. I don’t believe in Doghouses, right? I believe in live to fight another day. Today is not your night, but you’ll get a shot tomorrow. So I just don’t, I don’t take anything personal, man.
I can separate the business side from the athletic side. To being the, the person that they need me to be outside of basketball. And I think that’s why we’ve been so successful at everywhere, every stop we’ve been. Yeah.
[00:50:29] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, again, the, the investment in your players, not just as players, but as people, really allows you then to make that connection and allows you to coach those kids and, and get the most out of them without, without any question.
When you’re recruiting, obviously there’s a certain level of talent on the basketball court that a player has to be able to have to play for you as a head coach, but what are some of the intangible things that you look for in a player that are important to you beyond just their basketball skill? What characteristics are you looking for in a player that allows you to know that, Hey, I think this kid has a pretty good chance to be successful in my program?
[00:51:10] Jason Pruitt: We got three rules, man. Have to be a good person, right? I don’t want to be around anyone that’s not a good person, right? On and off the court, right? I, you have to go to class and you have to, you have to get your grades because your, your academic ability has allowed you to get this athletic opportunity, right?
And, and man, you just have to be like, the number one goal for us is, man, you have to be a good person, man. I’m not recruiting any jerks. I’m not recruiting any, I’m past that, that stage in my life. earlier when I first started coaching, I had to take some of those personalities, but as I got older now, and the system is in place, I have to, like, you as a person, man, I have to be able to hang out with you.
I have to be able to have a conversation with you, man. And, and that’s the biggest thing for me, man. I recruit good people, good people, good parents that, that, that good home, good house. Oh I can take a little kids, that’s rough around the edges, but as long as I know they have good intentions and, and are hard workers, I don’t, I don’t mind dealing with them.
[00:52:05] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think, again, when you’re talking about spending, especially at the college level, right? You’re spending a lot of time on the road at practice, whether you have study hall, just there’s on campus, there’s just lots and lots of time that you’re spending with those players. And then you take it a step further, right?
And you have your own family, right? That’s at the games that maybe is at practice that’s around the team. And you want to have your own family around the players and make sure that those players are somebody that you want your family around and your kids to be around and be influenced by. And so I do think that there’s a big part of sort of incorporating, right, your basketball family with your, your quote, real family, for lack of a better way of saying it.
[00:52:50] Jason Pruitt: Yeah. No, right. Yeah. I just like, I want to, like, I want to, like my, my house is, has always been open to any team, so like I don’t want. You at my house if you’re not a good person like, I don’t want you around my kids. If you’re not a good person. I don’t want to be around you if you’re not a good person.
So I just think that’s like the number thing. One thing for us is are they a good person? Are they going to do the right thing when no one is watching?
[00:53:16] Mike Klinzing: How was your wife adapted to your coaching career? Because obviously she didn’t know what she was getting into when you guys were both in TV when you met.
And the life of a coach’s spouse, as is not always the easiest one with just the travel and the time and all those things. So, so how’s it gone with, with her Again, some times people get into it knowing what knowing what the life of a life a coach’s spouse is, but how, how does your wife how, how’s she adapted to it and adjusted to it?
What’s that been like for the two of you?
[00:53:45] Jason Pruitt: Man, I think it gave her a new lease on life. I mean she’s like I told you, she’s a Hoosier, right? They, they live eating, sleep basketball. That’s all they know. she was she went to a school that won a state championship. Before class basketball in Indiana.
So if you say class basketball in Indiana, it, it is like a dirty word. what is class? We, we were, you see the movie Hoosiers, that’s what it’s about. so that, those are the conversations. So I think two times I had friends that be like, man, you, you’re so lucky, man. Like, like she understands you have to be on the road.
She understands recruiting. I’m like, no man, you don’t get it. Like, when you go home, your spouse may be asleep, right? Your wife is asleep or they’re not talking about it. When I come home, I got a whole scout report. Why did you play such and such? Why did you run this? Well, why are you doing this?
So why are you doing that? So I think at one point, man, when I started, went to a system base she was actually doing all the lineups and stuff of, of the analytical side of it. Before it was, it was popular saying, you need to play this group with this group, or you need to play this group with this group.
So I just think it was, I think it gave, gave her new life on Lee new life, on lease on life. to, to get involved in that because they’re, I mean, they’re basketball is, they’re basketball people. I mean, she look back then I want to watch HGTV, she want to watch basketball, ? So I’m like come on.
she was like, well, you don’t love it. I’m like, I do love it. You don’t love it like me, because I’m from India. I’m like, look, but I love it, but I want to watch something else sometimes. what I mean? So those you were watching Love conversation. You
[00:55:15] Jason Sunkle: were, you were loving. Love it. Or list it.
That’s what you were watching on. Yes. Love list. That’s my story. Love list. HT
[00:55:21] Jason Pruitt: property Brothers. Right? Property brothers. Property brother. Brothers. You
[00:55:24] Jason Sunkle: like Chip. I, Mike was dead nuts. You bring up pop culture reference that have nothing to do with basketball, and you’re going to get me in. You got it. You got, yeah.
Yeah, man. That’s
it.
[00:55:35] Jason Pruitt: There you go. That’s, that’s right. That’s what’s, that’s my wife. Your wife. I know every neighborhood in the country. Now,
[00:55:46] Mike Klinzing: your wife didn’t want to change careers.
[00:55:48] Jason Pruitt: She didn’t want to become a coach. No. She’d be like, I should be coaching. You don’t even love it like I do. I’m like, I do love it. We, we should. How you get the coaching when you, I should have been those are the conversations that, that used to take place, ?
So we, we have an 8-year-old now, so it’s like a, out of the past now. It’s like I’m busy. what I mean? Like, I, the game may be on, they may watch, they may not watch now, but like early on it was like, oh my goodness, man. Like, I’ve had to tell her during a game, go watch the game in the hotel.
Stop talking to me during the game. Sit, don’t sit behind the bench. ? So it was, it was, yeah. It’s been some tense moments before when it comes to stuff like
[00:56:27] Mike Klinzing: that. That’s good stuff. That is, that is funny. All right, let’s jump ahead here to Indiana State and talk about the adjustment from going from again, being a head coach in charge of your program, being able to make those decisions and having the buck stop at your desk.
Now you go back to. Assistance role. Talk about the adjustment from a mental standpoint for you, just having to again, fit into that role to, we talked about it before when you said what makes a good assistant coach, right? It’s, it’s being supportive of your head coach and doing what’s necessary to be able to help your program.
Just talk about what that adjustment was like for you.
[00:57:10] Jason Pruitt: You see the smile as the most, I done smiled in a year and a half, right? Hey, those kids come, Hey, what, what, what we need to do? I said, oh know man, I think you need to go talk to Coach Mitchell. Like, every question is, I think you need to go talk to Coach Mitchell, like someone from the administration office.
Come over. Hey man, what? That sound real good. Lemme run about coach real quick. I think that has been the biggest adjustment that I understand his role and his responsibility and I understand that it’s his program and my job is to do what he needs me to do. But I actually I have become better at speaking Mark Mitchell like.
I, I understand because I always knew what I wanted from my staffs. Right. So I have a sense of what he needs from me and how he needs me to be supported to his knowledge and his mission. Right. because at the end of the day, we’re all on the same team together and we all got one common goal. And it’s to he’s a professional flipper too, right?
That’s what we do. You got, we’re Hey, we’re, we’re like the property brothers, right? We’re we’re basketball flipping brothers. That’s right. Right. That’s what, there you go. We’re brothers. we, we, we flip programs. That’s what we do. So when we, when we go do a promo shoot, if we flip this one, we going to have like construction belt on and the hat and everything.
because we done flipped another program. But I mean, I, I, we got one common goal. I know what he wants. We were friends before this and that made it easier. I’ve had plenty opportunities to take division one jobs as assistant jobs before this opportunity. I took this job. With a f with a sense of familiarity with the person that I’m, that I’m coming with.
So that was an easy transition for me. Family guy believes in family time doesn’t believe in sitting in the office 20 hours a day. If you can get your job done from home, do your job from home, if you can get your job done here, he don’t care. Just get the job done. But the biggest thing is time management.
He respects our time he respects, respects our space. And that’s, and I tell some of the coaches on the staff now, look, when you leave here, every job ain’t going to be like this. So don’t think don’t think it’s going to be like this. because he gives us a lot of freedom and a lot of flexibility to work around our schedule as long as we get the job done.
So I’m like, don’t take it for granted. And, and that’s how I was, man, it is family first as one is his saying. So we are as one, . I have seen how some coaches may struggle with, with this, with this style and this system. Like, because it’s not a like. Assembly line program. It’s a get the job. Like, I trust you to be an adult.
I trust you to be a professional, get the job done. ? And that’s, that’s what it is. How is it being
[00:59:46] Mike Klinzing: part of a division one staff coming from a smaller school background where typically your staff was maybe a head coach, right? And maybe you had one assistant, maybe you had a graduate assistant, but a much smaller staff.
Now at the division one level, the staff is much bigger. You talked about it earlier. You had to do everything right. You’re washing the, you’re washing the laundry, you’re sweeping the floor, you’re doing this, you’re, you’re involved, your hand is in every aspect of the program. And when you have a bigger staff, you’re probably not touching as many different areas as you did when you were at the lower level.
So what’s that been like for you? Do you, do you like it more that you get to focus in and, and sort of narrow your focus? Or do you miss doing some of that other stuff just because that’s kind of the way that you always
[01:00:30] Jason Pruitt: did it? I miss it. I still do it. Like you can find me sweeping the floor at the arena or mopping the floor at the arena.
You can find me doing. I look, I still do the travel right now. I’m doing the travel for all the hotels and stuff. Like, you can still find me and, and, and, and, and Mark, we still do all the dirty jobs. We’re we’re division three guys. That’s what we started. So that’s all we know is to work. So it’s, it’s not work for us.
It’s what you’re supposed to do. Right. and I think that’s what the disconnect is. When I get around some other coaches, they was like, well, why you doing that? I’m like, because it’s our job to do that. Right. So I think the biggest, the biggest change is been that it’s literally someone to do everything for you.
Like if I want to go pick up a food, it’s somebody to go pick up food. Right? If I want somebody to clip my videos and my scout, it’s someone to clip my videos and scout. But I think I still do it myself. because it’s luck. It’s a lot easier to do it yourself when what you’re looking for. So I still get help from time to time, but I’m still a hands-on guy.
I still mostly do every, everything I was doing at Division three level, I still do it now. We still do it because it’s not work. It’s part of the job. Yes. And part of the duty. Nothing is beneath us.
[01:01:41] Mike Klinzing: That makes sense. And I mean, again, I think whenever I talk to guys who start out at the division three or small college level, inevitably one of the things that they cite that they feel like really made a difference and an impact in their coaching career, regardless of where they are at the given moment, they always cite just that ability to have been involved in everything early on in their career where, hey, I got to see the travel part of it.
I got to see the meals, I got to see the academics, I got to see the laundry, I got to see the meetings with the school president. I got to see the fundraising, all that stuff I was involved in. And then even if I progressed to a job where maybe that’s not in my job description, same way you just described, they end up just citing that as being so valuable.
because now. They understand those different aspects of the program. They feel like it just makes them stronger in whatever position they have. And especially for guys who are aspiring to be maybe a first time head coach, they always feel like that gives them experience that they can draw back on to be able to hopefully get a job and then have success in that first head coaching job.
And it sounds like you definitely feel like that I is, is the case for you on the path that you were on,
[01:02:50] Jason Pruitt: Hey, all these men and women that’s, that’s sitting on these benches and you sitting on this division one bench and you just waiting for a job and waiting for a job. Hey man, it’s not beneath you man.
Go get one of them jobs that if you can afford it. Now I know some of these jobs pay astronomical figures where you don’t want to lose that money, but if you’re in a position where you can go take a head coaching job at a lower program, hey, it’s the best owned job experience that you can ever get. It’s actually go learn how to actually be a coach and run a program.
[01:03:17] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, there’s no doubt about that. Tell me a little bit about your guys’ planning process practice planning process. How do you go about planning a practice day to day? And then, and then what do you look for in, in terms of a practice at Indiana State?
[01:03:32] Jason Pruitt: Indiana State, man, we got like you, like we talked about in the beginning.
Whew. A winning season has been a long time for the sycamores. Right. And I think after going through that season last year where we were only win, we were only able to win four games. Man, that was one of the longest years of my life, man. you got, you got two champions coming from building championship programs to sit through that.
And it’s sometimes, man, it’s just about what fits and what doesn’t fit. And coach wants to play a certain style and so we had to go out and get some athletes to play the style he won. So now. Since we have those athletic bodies that he needs to run the Mark Mark Mitchell system. Man, we do a lot of conditioning.
We do a lot of conditioning, we do a lot of shooting, we do a lot of ACL prevention work. We do a lot of conditioning. We do a lot of shooting, we do a lot of conditioning. You sometimes you think we’re track team because we’re in the situation now where top teams in the Missouri Valley are the top teams, right?
The, the, the Belmonts, the Murray States Missouri State left. And you have to do something different in order to be able to compete in that conference. And I think that Coach Mitchell and I we’re figuring it out and I think we we’re on the right and going in the right direction to be able to compete at a high level in this conference.
So we take it back to the fundamentals. And to the basics, man. Because at the end of the day, you have to have the skillset. You have to have the fundamentals, and you have to be in shape in order to last in this early part, especially, especially with the landscape now. Right? So now. Mid major, right?
We’re junior colleges if we get two or three good players, they’re leaving, ? Yeah. Because we, some people we just can’t afford, right? So we’re no longer are the days of building a program, right? We’re trying to build a team from year to year. So I think now we just have to get the players in and maximize their skillset for the, the time that we’re blessed to have them.
And if they decide to stay, we’re blessed. And if someone pays them more money human nature, they’re going to leave and take their more money and we have to go load up and get more players again. And I think that’s the landscape of college basketball now that you’re just, you’re, you’re, you’re planning your practice plan, you’re planning your game strategy to what you have right now.
You can no longer plan for three, four years down the road.
[01:05:54] Mike Klinzing: That is so true. I mean, I’ve talked to so many coaches and the idea of basically every team is its own entity, right? You have one year with this group, and then next year, yeah, you might have a couple of your players back, but for the most part, you’re going to turn over a pretty good percentage.
Of your roster. And so you have to just again, accept the fact that, hey, we’re not bringing in this freshman class and man, we can’t wait another two or three years for that class to get to be juniors and seniors. And man, that’s really what we’re going to, we’re going to really make a, make a run, which is kind of right.
When you think about mid majors at the division one level of college basketball, that was kind of always the formula, right? That they get a couple under the radar players, those players develop, and by the time they’re juniors and seniors now they’ve got experience, they’re ready to be able to win a conference championship or make an NCAA tournament run or whatever it is.
And now basically, as you just said, that whole thing has gone away. And it’s just, you have to make, make do with I have to, we have to maximize this team right now. How can we get the most out of them? And you talked a little bit about how important conditioning is and the ACL prevention, obviously on the women’s side, but.
Tell me a little bit about specifically what do you guys do when you talk about conditioning? What does that look like in a practice? What kind of drills, what kind of things are you guys doing to get your players in the type of condition that they have to be in, in order to play the style that you guys want to play?
[01:07:19] Jason Pruitt: this, this year is different from what we did last year because we actually have some players that coach Mitchell actually went out and recruited to play his style of basketball. And so this year everything we do is full court. Any, any half court drill that we did in the past, everything is full court on the go now.
For example, we, we run a lot of champions. back in the day you would call them suicides, but you can’t say suicide anymore. So we call them champions. So we run a lot of champions. We run a lot of seventeens, bulldog lines. We do a lot of transition.
[01:07:47] Jason Sunkle: We call them Bulldog lines. Bulldog lines, yeah.
Seventh and eighth graders definitely. And the girls are like, aren’t these suicides? And I’m like, we can’t say that in a middle school guy. I know I say that. No.
[01:07:59] Jason Pruitt: Yeah. So we do, we do a lot of, we do a lot of those. We do a lot of seventeens. We play, what? We do a lot. We play a lot. So we’ll teach something for five or 10 minutes and we’re like, all right, let’s take it from the top.
Let’s play. And this is what we’re only doing now. We’re playing that we do a lot of we have to do a lot of five on oh drills. We do a lot of shooting drills when they’re fatigued. Like every, every after we run, every, every drill, every conditioning drill ends with a shooting drill to get them up.
We do a lot of five on, oh, when it comes to running, what Coach Mitchell wants us to run running his sets. Man, every transition drill in the book, every half court drill in the book, everything has been now been transformed to a full court system. So I think that’s one of the biggest adapt adaptions from last year.
So like I told you, last year was probably one of the longest years I ever went through in my life, right? Would not wish that on anyone when it comes to like competing. But some of those players was really good basketball players. And some of those players actually found homes on really good teams because they may not have, could have been your star player, but hey man, they was worth that money to another program that was planned, that needed that piece.
And a lot of them were that piece that some of these contending programs needed to take their program farther, ? And at that time we just didn’t need pieces. We needed, like we needed Jordans, we had enough pippins and we just needed to go out and, and get that player. There was some really good there, there’s some really good pieces that we’re actually going to have to play against some of those pieces this year and some good programs in our conference.
But for the way that, that, that Coach Mitchell wants to play, man, he wants best athlete available and he wants everything to be as if they’re getting track and field conditioned in. And that’s what we have hung our hat on so far. And we’ll see where it takes us.
[01:09:44] Mike Klinzing: As you’re putting together the practice plan, what is the actual process of sitting down and, and writing out the practice plan?
Is that Coach Mitchell writing the plan initially himself and then sharing it with you guys as assistants? Are you guys all sitting down in a meeting and bouncing ideas off of each other? What’s the process like of putting together a practice plan?
[01:10:04] Jason Pruitt: in the beginning, coach Mitchell does all of that.
He puts together his own plan, then he shares it with us as the season has progressed and we see where the holes head now, like if I have a, if we, if we’re, if we’re suffering and rebounding, I say, Hey man, here’s three or four rebounding drills that we need to do. He’s like, all right, here, go your 15 minutes.
You do it. if we’re, if we’re suffering in, in advancing the bot in transition, and I say, Hey man, we need to work on these transition drills. He’s like, all right, here, go your 20 minutes. You do it, I’ll be back. So he’s very hands off approach when it comes to that. Like, if you see something and you need to identify, as long as you run it by him, he’ll throw it in the practice plan, ?
So we’ll meet, we meet, we’ll meet the day before, the day after, before now we’ll go over it and we’ll build that practice plan together now. But in the very beginning when he, we had a 14 new kids and he is trying to implement this system. He’s basically telling us, Hey, this is what we’re going to do. This is what we’re going to work on, and this is what we’re looking for when I was a head coach is is it different?
everyone has their different method, right? I’m very, I delegate a lot, right? Hey, if you’re responsible for bigs, you’re taking your bigs at the end of the court. You’re teaching them something in our offense, right? I’m taking the shooters, I’m going to this in and the offense, we’re going to come back together.
We’re going to put together, like I pressed 40 minutes, right? So, hey, my first hour of practice may be partial of the press. We’re breaking it down from one-on-one to two on two to three, on three to four on four to the build up to the five on five. So it just depends on what you need. I’m not, I was taught, I had very good coaches remember, and come from pro style.
I was taught never become a slave to your practice plan. Just because you have this down on your practice plan for 10 minutes, you can’t move on to the next thing. If your team doesn’t understand this thing, scrap their practice plan and learn. Work on what you need to work on. And I have seen too many coaches become a slave to that practice plan.
Oh, I got this down. We have to get to here. But we didn’t, we didn’t, we didn’t learn this, so how we going to jump to this? So it it, it kind of floats, man. Like I told you, my, my approach has been very different from most coaches. Like, I’m going to work on what I think we need to work on, no matter what’s on that practice plan because I know this gives me the best chance of winning
[01:12:09] Mike Klinzing: that goes to I always think that when you look at coaching, right, there’s part of coaching that is a science, right?
You have to understand X’s and O’s. There’s things that now analytically that you can study and that can help you to be able to put the best lineups on the floor to be able to figure out where you should get your shots on offense and what kind of shots you’re trying to prevent on defense. But then there’s also what you just described, which is.
The art of coaching, right? It’s having a practice plan and having all the science down there on the paper, but then looking at it and going, what? My team doesn’t need X, which is the next thing on the play on, on the practice plan. They actually need more, or y or maybe they need something completely different.
And I think that coaching is just, whenever you’re dealing with people, there’s so much to, yeah, there’s knowledge that you have to have in order to be a great coach. But then there’s also that feel piece of it, right? And I think what you’re describing is the feel of, Hey, my team’s getting this. We can move on.
Or, Hey, my team really needs a little bit more time here with this drill or this concept. And I think the best coaches are able to combine that, that, that science along with the, along with the feel, it’s kind of, kind of the art of coaching.
[01:13:21] Jason Pruitt: the one thing that I, for a, for an a for a young assistant coach or a, an assistant coach, and this is what I have seen from the division one that comes from a very structured place.
I’m a nightmare, right? I’m like, man, throw that structure out the door, man. It’s basketball. At the end of the day. It’s five of them. It’s five of us. Man. This is what we need to, this is what we need to work on. Like the, the one thing that, the one thing that I struggle with I’ve been fortunate to win a lot of championships, high school, junior college, as a player, as a coach, right?
The one thing I struggle with a lot, and I have to get better on it, because I do believe you can learn something from anyone that you’re willing to listen to, right? It’s always a piece of information, even if it’s wi, even if you’re learning what not to do or what to do, right? But man, I laugh at some of these coaches, man.
They’ll come up and you need to do X, Y, and Z and X, Y and z, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, well, how many championships have you ever won? Have you ever tried that? Well, well tell me when that works for you, because this is what works for me. Like you have to, if you’re going to work for someone, right?
Learn what that person does and how they do it. Then bring suggestions to the table after you learn their system. You can’t make changes to a system that you all, that nothing about. And I think that’s what a mistake is with so many assistant coaches is they’re so gung-ho. They got this playbook, they got this, and they haven’t even took, took time to learn what it is that that coach they’re working for does.
And I think that’s the the thing that I learned a lot. Like I had a bunch of suggestions, right? I learned what Mark Mitchell does. I learned how Mark Mitchell went undefeated and won a national championship. Now I can tweak some things here. Hey, why don’t we try this coach? Or why don’t we do this without me looking like I’m trying to take over his program or take over his thing?
Because what he does works, and I just, he just hired me to add on to what he does.
[01:15:11] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s a great point. And I think it’s one that oftentimes is missed and you can take that from what you’re describing, right? Just in terms of understanding your head, coach’s offensive and defensive systems. And then.
Bringing ideas, thoughts, answers to the table. And again, obviously as an assistant, your head coach is going to either take your suggestion or oftentimes reject your suggestion. You have to put your ego aside and continue to bring those potential solutions to your head coach. But I think that even goes to recruiting, right?
You have to understand the type of player that your head coach wants to coach that’s going to have success underneath that coach. because we’ve all been in situations where you see a player that, hey, you might like that player’s talent, or you might like something about them, but that for whatever reason that player’s not a fit for your head coach.
And until you get a feel for the type of player that’s going to excel underneath your head coach. It’s really difficult, I think, to go in and evaluate and say, Hey, this kid’s going to be perfect for the program if you don’t understand what your head coach wants. And I think that covers all different aspects of the program.
And it’s great advice for an assistant coach out there is whoever you’re working for, learn as much about what they do, how they do it, why they do it. Try to get inside their mind and understand as much of it as you can. And then, as you said, now you can take, you’ve got this whole picture right now, you can take it and you can pull out a little piece or you can add a little piece to it.
It’s not you coming in and saying, well, here, here’s, here’s everything that I believe. Let’s just lump that on top of them with our head coach. And, and I do think that sometimes assistant coaches mean well in those circumstances, but sometimes you’re, you’re not going to get the results that you want by trying to dump your whole philosophy on top of your head.
Coaches.
[01:17:01] Jason Pruitt: Or if you don’t want to do what your head coach wants you to do, go get your own job, go get your own program. Right? It’s that simple, right? Like, either do what he wants you to do or that person wants you to do. Go get your own job because so much, right?
[01:17:14] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, Jason, we’re going hour and 16 minutes here.
So I want to ask you one final two part question, part one, okay. When you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, change your careers, leaving the field of TV to become a head, bas become a head, a basketball coach, what brings you the most joy?
So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.
[01:17:44] Jason Pruitt: The bi, the biggest challenge is not knowing what the future holds, right? You never know. You can’t play in the, in this profession, you can’t plan you got coaches getting fired with winning records, right? You got coaches doing what the, what the landscape is.
So the biggest challenge is, man, just being able to, to plan ahead and, and see what the future holds and, and, and see where the Lord may want you to be. Man, you just have to put your trust and faith, faith in the Lord, and then he’ll take you where you need to be. So that, that’s the biggest challenge is being patient.
And when you receive that message, or you receive that following what you, following the plan that God is telling you to do even though it may not be something that you want to do, right, because we, we get in, we get in the way of ourself sometime, and sometimes just letting go and following the word it, it’ll give you every answer you need, and sometimes it may be right in front of you, ?
So I think that’s the biggest things that humans, that, that, that we, we, we struggle with is like, like being patient and, and, and being obedient and listen and, and being a listen and following. The second part, man what, man, I’ve had the best of both worlds, man. When I was coaching in California I never left TV a hundred percent.
I was able to be a full-time freelancer for the City of Beverly Hills for BHTV. So I did that the whole time we were in, in California. So, man, I just think that I’ve been so blessed that to be able to combine the media world with the athletic world and being able to do both has, has kept me grounded, man, and, and, and, and, and gives me enough of this and enough of that to keep me balanced.
So I think that’s one of the, the biggest things for me, man, is being able to live, live the, have the best of both worlds.
[01:19:26] Mike Klinzing: Good stuff. I mean, not many people, again, a lot of people try to find that one thing that brings them joy and brings them meaning, and you’ve been able to, to find two. And, and that’s, that’s pretty rare to be able to, to be able to say that you have two things that you love, that you’re able to continue to be able to participate in both of them.
That’s a special thing for sure. Before we get out, Jason, I want to give you a chance to share how can people get in touch with you, connect with you, find out more about your program at Indiana State, share email, social media, website, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.
[01:20:03] Jason Pruitt: Look, man, I’m old, so I actually got the pull mine up. It’s bad when you don’t even know your social media tags. Right. Got, I still got the, I’m learning the same. So on X, formerly known as Twitter. you can follow me @coachjkpruitt, on Instagram, or IG as the kid say, I think it is @jkpruitt
You can always go to the Indiana State website. My email’s on there. Just hit me up anytime I try to respond back to everyone that I can.
[01:20:38] Mike Klinzing: Jason, can I thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us? Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening.
We will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.
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[01:21:41] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.