For Kansas City Kansas Community College basketball, Dan Pratt came at exactly the right time.
Pratt’s arrival as head coach in the fall of 1986 came at a time the 3-point shot was in its infancy. “Nobody knew anything about it, including me,” remembers Pratt. “No one knew how to approach it or appreciate it.”
Over the next three years, Pratt’s teams would alert the entire nation to the impact 3-point shooting would have on the game. In just his third season, the Blue Devils led the nation in 3-pointers, knocking down 342 of 880 attempts. Guard Maurice Lamar gained national attention in Sports Ilustrated by leading the nation in treys, hitting on 161 of 393 tries. Their record of 21 of 47 threes in the 1988 Jayhawk Shootout has never been bettered.
Not only were the Blue Devils introducing a new wide open game of basketball, they were winning games. Taking over a team that had won just 47 of 114 games in the previous four seasons, Pratt’s first three teams were 22-10, 22-10 and 20-12. Equally important, each season they qualified for the playoffs in what was clearly the toughest NJCAA Division 1 conference in the country – the Jayhawk. Before that, KCKCC teams had gained the playoffs only twice in the previous 17 years. “We never addressed it (3-point shooting) before the season and we never set screens, we just stood out of the way and let them go when a 3-point shot would open up,” says Pratt.
Of course, the 3-point success would not have been possible were it not for a handful of sharp-shooting guards who weren’t afraid to let fly from long range, guys like Michael Hynes, Louis Jones, James Davis and Maurice Lamar – four of the six members of KCKCC’ s all-time greatest team. Hynes set the all-time KCKCC scoring record with 53 points at Independence. Lamar netted 11 treys against Garden City in the Shootout. Jones led scoring two years in a row. Davis is the only Blue Devil with a “quadruple double” and two triple doubles. “JD is the best player I coached,” says Pratt.
Guards were always a strength of Pratt’s teams – Sam Lars, Mark McQuillen, Brad Henry, Darin Dahl Corey Shelby, Prentes Potts and Stan Bradley, names that still fill the record book for assists and steals. And not forgotten, Jayhawk scoring leader and KCKCC’s all-time career scoring leader, Bryan Scott at just 6-feet-2.
“The country is filled with 6-foot guards; to get big guys you have too have scholarships,” reasons Pratt, who at the time had to go head-to-head with such D1 powers as Independence, Hutchinson, Garden City and Dodge City, teams that boasted such stars as NBA great Harvey Grant; Keith Smart, who helped Indiana win a national championship; and countless NCAA standouts.
Among the best of the ‘bigs’ were Desmond Clifton, who went on to play at West Virginia; 6-9 rebounding terror Harold Harris, Henry Thomas, Steve Barrick of Piper, George Guilbeaux and Bobby Harris. “Henry Thomas may have been the best of our big men because he could really score; Bobby Harris may have been the best player we recruited. He did not have a fatigue level,” says Pratt. In his 13 seasons, Pratt’s teams were 206-196, the second most wins in KCKCC history. Nine teams made the playoffs.
But the record Pratt is most proud is almost every one of his players got an opportunity to continue their basketball careers at four-year programs, many in large part by Pratt’s aggressiveness in finding the right fit. “Most of them played somewhere; I can only think of one or two who chose to go in a different direction. I don’t remember who told me this but the main responsibility of a community coach is to open a new door for his players. There’s always a spot, you just have to find the right spot.”
“I remember sitting in Dan’s office one day and he got a call from coach who wanted to recruit one of his players, a player who had been dropped because of disciplinary reasons,” remembers retired baseball coach Steve Burleson. “Dan said, ‘Coach, Mr. Smith is no longer in our program but I’ll contact and see if he’d like to talk to you.”
Partly because of his outgoing personality, Pratt was well-known to not only every Kansas college coach but countless nationally and you could never tell who might be in his office on a recruiting visit. One, in particular, stands out. Derek Whittenberg, who had led North Carolina State to the NCAA championship and is the narrator on an ESPN documentary on Coach Jim Valvano, showed up one snowy day and got into a pickup game with Pratt and others. I know. I was Whittenberg’s partner.
The list of famous coaches just showing up in the KCKCC Field House includes names like Roy Williams, Billy Tubbs, Brad Underwood and Lon Krueger and countless assistants from national programs. Don Haskins, who coached Texas Western to an NCAA championship, never passed stopping by whenever in Kansas City.
No Pratt story would be complete without his two most memorable games. First, a 122-113 overtime loss at Garden City in a game called the greatest in Shootout history. The second, ending Independence’s 56-game home winning streak 102-97 in overtime, a game in which Maurice Lamar scored nine 3-pointers and 29 points in the second half to erase a 51-41 halftime deficit. “My biggest win ever and maybe the biggest ever at KCKCC,” says Pratt. “You just don’t go to Independence and win.”
After stepping down in 1999, Pratt served nearly 14 years as athletic director, a tenure that included the addition of women’s soccer; a new basketball floor, improved softball facilities, the start of major reconstruction of baseball, soccer and track facilities and additions to the athletic staffs in both numbers and financially.
A native of West Monroe, LA., Pratt was all-state in football, all-regional on a state runnerup basketball team and ran track. A Tabor College in Hillsboro, KS., he was a member of the school’s first football team, played basketball, ran track and played tennis and baseball one season.
His coaching resume included five years at Hillsboro High School, two in Henderson, Neb.; and one year at Dodge City CC before five years at Marymount in Salina. “My first year we were 24-6 and the Salina Journal headline wrote ‘Pratt completes worst season in Marymount history’ and it was because the program was so good.” But the college within two years of closing, Pratt left after five years and came to KCKCC to make history.