All-City guard Pruitt hopes to be playing basketball for Fremont
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Jason Pruitt, the City Section Small Schools player of the year who led View Park to the state Division V title game last season, is hoping to finish his senior season playing at L.A. Fremont, if he is cleared by section officials.
View Park’s administration refused to allow the All-City guard to play with its team while he was taking independent study courses at home. That decision eventually led to the dismissal of James Wilkes as the team’s coach for “philosophical differences” with the school, according to Brian Taylor, View Park’s middle-school principal who took over as the boys’ coach.
Pruitt’s father, George, who was attending View Park’s Coliseum League game against visiting Dorsey Friday night, said he hoped City officials would reach a decision some time next week.
Pruitt, pictured, was a key player for Division III state champion Lakewood Artesia as a sophomore and averaged 26.9 points last season. He is the younger brother of Gabe Pruitt, who was a second-round draft pick by the Boston Celtics last summer after spending one season playing for USC.
Taylor, a former New York Nets basketball player whose son, Bryce, is a standout at Oregon, plans to keep both jobs at View Park, at least through the current season.
Though Wilkes had guided the Knights to a 23-12 record and the City’s Small Schools Division championship, Taylor said the school’s administration was adamant that its students be enrolled in classes on campus in order to compete on its athletic teams.
‘We feel very strongly that academics comes first,’ said Taylor, who took over the team on Monday.
Taylor has coached youth basketball for several years and was a former girls’ basketball coach at North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake and boys’ coach at Shalhevet.
On Friday, he said it had been “an exhausting week,” but the Knights (4-3, 2-1) have responded with league victories over host Manual Arts, 74-59, on Wednesday, and Dorsey, 76-74.
“Even though it’s been an exhausting week for me, it’s been even tougher on the young people,” Taylor said. “They lost a great coach in Wilkes, who they loved dearly. And to have them overcome that to win against a great team like Dorsey [5-2, 2-1] is phenomenal.”
-- Mike Terry and Eric Sondheimer
-- Image by Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times