During his pre-game meeting with the officials on the field, Coach Pruitt voluntarily informed the officials of the possibility that the play might be run during the contest, and the head official warned the coach that the play would result in an unsportsmanlike penalty assessed against the Pioneers, citing the act as a travesty of the game.
The head coach disagreed with the officials over the opinion, but Pruitt had to leave the meeting before settling the matter in order to attend Senior Night activities before kickoff.
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| The Watauga back-flip video appeared, among other places, on the Yahoo! home page (photo courtesy WHS Media Relations) |
After the flag, the coach decided the time was right to run the seniors’ play.
The play, entitled “Right Pro 80 Cam,” was called and during its execution, penalty flags were thrown prior to the snap. Watauga was assessed a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct as Hass was deemed as “bringing attention to oneself,” akin to a touchdown celebration penalty. Haas was also ejected from the contest.
During the fallout that ensued, an assistant coach argued the call with an official on the sideline and was flagged for an additional unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The flag counted as the second penalty assessed against the head coach, which by rule resulted in the ejection of Pruitt.
An individual caught the incident on camera from the vantage point of the press box and posted the footage on the popular www.youtube.com website. Within the past week of the video’s posting, the video had received more than two million views. In addition, national media outlets caught wind of the incident. The video was featured on the home page of the Yahoo! website, and the video was featured on the ESPN television network’s broadcasts Jim Rome is Burning and Around the Horn.
Now, it’s not every day that a rural high school in the mountains of Western North Carolina is featured in such a manner.
In the aftermath of the incident, Pruitt was gracious enough to speak with me in his first one-on-one interview regarding what transpired, and expressed deep regret over what took place that evening, over the notoriety of the incident, as well as the fact that his player was unexpectedly ejected from his final football game as a senior.
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| Tim Pruitt at a WHS function in 2008. His decision to run a play called by his team's senior football players on Senior Night made national sports headlines. (Steve Behr/Watauga Democrat photo) |
Pruitt wrote a letter which he provided to our sister newspaper The Watauga Democrat last week, as well as to members of Watauga County Schools. In it he took personal responsibility for the incident and apologized for any negative publicity the incident might have caused.
“I feel that the national and local attention put on this story has caused embarrassment for many and has put a bad light on our program and for this I am very sorry,” Pruitt wrote. “We all will make mistakes in life, and unless we learn from those mistakes we have not grown. I hope you will be able to forgive me for this mistake, and that you will have confidence that I have the kids’ best interest at heart in the decisions that I make in the classroom and on the playing field.”
In our discussion Pruitt clarified a statement that has been circulating in some media outlets where he was quoted as stating that if he knew he would be ejected, he would not have called the play.
“Cam is a kid with unbelievable talent as an athlete, but he’s also an unbelievable talent as an actor and a musician. He’s just a kid that does a lot of things in our community and at his church, so I don’t think this will be the last you hear of Cam Haas doing something famous or important,” Pruitt shared. “I was quoted as saying that if I knew I would be ejected I would not have called the play, but after the game I said ‘If I would have known that Cam would have been ejected, I would never have run the play.’”
The coaching fraternity is by its nature a tightly-knit group. Pruitt was quick to share with me the respect he has for Avery head football coach Darrell Brewer. As a fellow coach who understands what it means to take criticism, Pruitt has great admiration for the lead Viking and what he has done for Avery High School, and he as well as anyone understands the rigors of coaching and dealing with decisions and consequences.
“They don’t get much better than Darrell [Brewer]. He’s a guy who went through a lot of hard times to get to where he and his team are right now as a No. 1 seed in their pod for the playoffs,” Pruitt said. “For people to talk about players playing certain plays and doing certain things… That’s what we play the game for, to have players be in position to win a football game against a team like Mitchell, and to have an opportunity to be a No. 1 seed. He was doing what he needed to do to win the game. To give a coach grief over a situation like that is ludicrous. People need to concentrate on the positive things about the football program. For a coach to have to go through negative talk during the playoffs for a team that has gone from where they were last year to where they are now and who they lost to this season, that team has taken a giant step. This time next year, I hope I can say that my program has taken a step like his program has this year. People need to look at the big picture. Coaches don’t get paid enough to have to deal with people being critical of them all the time. We take a lot of time away from our families to do what we do, and for people to ride him is unbelievable in a season where they’ve had so much success.”
Prior to this incident I had a great deal of respect for Pruitt, dating back to when I first met him as head football coach at West Wilkes High School. He has always played the game the right way and respected his players and opponents.
Regardless of what has occurred, I believe Pruitt cares deeply for his players, and the fact that he wanted to do something special for his seniors on what was to be their final game, then to be the stand-up person that he is and take responsibility for the ramifications speaks even greater volumes about his character.
“It was a play that my seniors had chosen. You go to every head coach in the country and ask their players if they’ve taken a penalty for their players, and they’ll tell you they have. I took a penalty earlier this year belaboring a call to protect a player, and I took a half-the-distance penalty many years ago which didn’t cost all that much. I didn’t think taking a penalty in this instance would cost that much either, but I felt like I deserved to run the play for the seniors,” Pruitt told me. “The nice thing would have been for us to have connected on the pass and at least we could have said ‘hey, the play worked.’ But the things that came after that obviously led to some embarrassment, and as a head coach that’s something that I have to take responsibility for.”
Twenty years from now, it isn’t likely that everyone will remember that the 2010 Watauga Pioneers lost their final game 31-28 on Senior Night to Saint Stephen’s. But you can bet that the lasting memory of the back-flip play will stay with those players who played their final game that night in Boone and will be a uniting bond between them for a long time to come.
