After a successful stint with Towson Catholic's boys' basketball team, Josh Pratt is making a switch, taking reigns of the St. Vincent Pallotti girls' program. Pratt won two MIAA A titles at Towson Catholic.
dtoney@digitalsports.com
Josh Pratt, who led Towson Catholic to a pair of MIAA A Conference boys' basketball championships, is the new girls' basketball coach at St. Vincent Pallotti. Pratt succeeds Debbie Skelly, who resigned last month after 10 seasons.
Pratt said he wasn't going to be retained as a physical education teacher at Towson Catholic next school year. He said he was contacted by several friends in the Pallotti community.
"They said they had a teaching position, so I had to look into it," said Pratt, who applied for a couple of boys' coaching positions in the D.C. metro area. "They showed a lot of interest."
I didn't want teach in one school and coach at another. It's important to be in the building."
Pratt is very familiar with the Laurel school. He was a boys' assistant under Mike Glick from 1993 to 1998 when Pallotti became a competitive force in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference. He was a teacher at St. Mary's of the Mills School, located across the street from Pallotti.
Pratt moved to Archbishop Spalding as an assistant under Glick (now coach at Gwynn Park) from 1998 to 2004 before taking the reigns at St. Mary's for one season in 2004-05. He moved to Towson Catholic the following season where he succeeded longtime coach Mike Daniel. Pratt went 98-41 in four seasons including the 2006-07 MIAA A and Baltimore Catholic League titles with current Sacramento King Donte' Greene and Virginia Tech's Malcolm Delaney, who was a third-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference pick as a sophomore this past season.
The Owls made a late season surge and successfully defended their MIAA A crown in 2007-08. Last season, Towson Catholic went 17-13.
Now, Pratt (107-57 career record) moves over to the girls' side at Pallotti, which won back-to-back IAAM B championships in 2005-06 and 2006-07, and made four straight trips to the finals between 2005-2008. He met with the players Wednesday.
"It's the same drills and concepts, the interaction may be different," said Pratt. "I'm excited about the challenge."
