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Duff thankful for opportunity as NP coach
By Joey Bennett
Sports Editor
The North Putnam girls' basketball program has changed coaches four times in the last five years, and predictably has not flourished on the court during those constant transitions.
Jarrod Duff has been a varsity coach at two of Putnam County's other three high schools, and with his recent hiring as the fifth Cougars' head coach in the last six years he is looking to bring stability to the NP program that he hopes will also bring success.
"It'll be good to have someone who is in the building who is committed to being the varsity girls coach long-term, and I am committed to working hard and building a program," Duff said. "That's important to me. Any time you have a situation where you change coaches frequently, it's hard to build a long-term, stable program."
North Putnam began the new millennium strongly in girls' basketball, going 66-8 from 2000-01 to 2002-03 with three sectional crowns and two regional titles.
However, success has been lacking since Jim Spencer departed the program following the 2003 season.
Six different coaches (including Spencer in a one-year return two years ago) have only produced one winning season in the past 13 years.
"When Jim Spencer was the coach here back in the early 2000s, this was one of the best programs in the area," Duff said. They went to back-to-back semistates and had a really good team and program.
"When I was coaching at Greencastle, the girls basketball in the area was unbelievable," he added. "There were a lot of good players and coaches, and it was fun being part of that. I'm looking forward to that."
Extensive background on the sidelines
Duff was the girls' head coach at Greencastle from 2001-02 through 2004-05, and reciprocated his team's records from 6-15 and 7-15 in the first two seasons to 16-7 and 15-7 in his final two seasons.
Duff has coached many different sports in both genders and at all levels, giving him a vast knowledge base to draw upon as he looks to build the Cougar program.
He was Greencastle's seventh-grade boys' coach for four years before taking over the girls' varsity position, and after leaving there he was a girls' assistant coach under Darren Haas at Crawfordsville and Bruce Cook at Cloverdale for one year each.
Duff then returned to coaching the Greencastle eighth-grade boys' team for a year, and left teaching and coaching for a year before being hired at Cloverdale as varsity football coach and middle school baseball coach.
He coached the Clover varsity baseball team in his last year before his teaching position was eliminated due to a reduction in force.
"When I went to Cloverdale, I really thought I would be there for the rest of my career and retire there," Duff said. "I really enjoyed coaching football there, and it just came down to a financial situation where the school corporation lost funding from the state, and I was one of the teachers that hadn't been there very long so I was let go."
Duff appreciated the faith that principal Sonny Stoltz, athletic director J.J. Wade and superintendent Carrie Milner showed in hiring him.
"They were great to me there," he said. "I made a lot of friends there, but I am very happy to be at North Putnam. I have been very lucky to get the position here."
Duff is in his second year at North Putnam, having served as varsity assistant to Cougar boys' coach Collin McCartt last winter.
"When I came here, I hadn't coached basketball for five years," Duff said. "I really enjoyed last season under Collin, and he was great to work with. I enjoyed the kids, and getting back into coaching basketball, but I am looking forward to the opportunity I have been given here."
Not an easy decision to make
Duff admits that making the decision to take over the NP girls' program was not an easy as it may have seemed.
He built good relationships with Coach McCartt and the players on the boys' team last year, including his son [Duke, a junior]. Another factor he had to consider was that his daughter, Jalyn, is a freshman player at Greencastle and will be a future opponent.
"When I had some conversations with Tim Garver, our AD, and Jason Chew, our principal, that was the hardest part of making this decision," he said. "The other factors were that I was able to coach Duke this year in basketball, and I won't be coaching him next year. I've told people it seems like a no-brainer when you can step up and be a varsity coach from being an assistant coach, but it really wasn't."
He was glad that his two older children were able to experience his coaching positions during their youth, and his two-year-old daughter will be able to also benefit from that experience.
"I was able to bring them to practices when they were younger, and I think that has helped them as athletes and as people," he said. "Not a lot of parents have the advantage of being able to take their kids to work.
"I'm just really thankful to Mr. [Daniel] Noel, Mr. [Jason] Chew , Mr. [Tim] Garver and all the school board members for giving me this opportunity."
No certain style of play set in stone
Duff said he doesn't believe any successful high school coach can "get stuck" in one certain style of play and make his players fit that design.
"It's important that you look at your personnel on a year-by-year basis, and gear what you do based upon what your personnel is," he said. "If you're at a place for a long period of time, that 's a little more do-able."
Duff does have one point of emphasis he wants his new program to live by.
"I want to be a really good, hard-nosed defensive team that rebounds," he said. "One of the things when I had the girls at Greencastle was that we struggled at times putting the ball in the basket, but we were able to defend really well and rebound and we were competitive."
Duff compares the situation he inherited at Greencastle to the one he is taking over, with several different coaches in the seasons before his arrival and a lack of success in the win-loss column.
He also points to limiting the number of turnovers his teams make as being another key factor in turning things around.
"No matter what sport you're talking about, a lot of times the team that makes the fewest amount of mistakes wins," he said. "Probably the most important thing with that is that you're going to make mistakes, but it's how you respond to those mistakes.
"A lot of times you see athletes who make a mistake, and because of how they react to that mistake, it turns into two or three mistakes."
Duff said he does not have his teams to set specific goals on win totals or accumulation of championships, and he has developed a theory over the past seven or eight seasons he has coached which he applies to his personal life.
"One thing that we will talk about is playing in the moment," he said. "Playing each possession, every drill in practice, as being important. I have never talked about winning with the teams I've coached.
"I want our teams to be more process-driven," Duff added. "We will work hard on trying to do the right thing when we're doing this drill or playing this opponent. It's a possession-by-possession thing."
Great mentors to learn from
Duff makes no secret that a great majority of the coaching theories and ideals he has developed came from an impressive list of his own coaches from his playing days at Greencastle.
"Any coach who says that everything they do is their own idea is not telling the truth," he said. "In coaching we are the worst pirates that you can be. We all steal ideas from other coaches."
Duff played football for and later coached with Hall of Famer John Fallis, while his basketball coach was Doug Miller and his baseball coach was Stan Ward.
"Probably 90 percent of what comes out of my mouth and the way I try to do things I learned from John Fallis," Duff said. "Doug Miller is a great person and a great coach, and I was lucky enough to have him as an AD when I was coaching girls at Greencastle.
"Stan Ward helped me coach the girls at Greencastle, and I also learned a lot from him," he added. "I'm very blessed to have had so much great role models."
Not much time until June
Duff was encouraged earlier this week when holdover assistant coach Katie Copsey texted several of the returning players on short notice about an open gym the following morning, and 13 players made it to the gym.
"We have about seven or eight back on the varsity roster, so we're kind of starting over fresh," he said. "The turnout at open gym was encouraging, and this summer is going to be huge. We're going to come in a couple of days a week for the next month."
The Cougars will be playing in the South Putnam summer league, which begins on June 2, so there isn't a lot of time to work on individual skills before then.
"June is going to be really important as far as installing the things that we want to do and laying a foundation for how we're going to play," Duff added. "We're going to have a three-day team camp prior to the summer league starting, and this time will allow me to get to know them and for them to get to know me and how we want to do things."