Winslow’s Jerron Jordan enters new chapter coaching the boys program

By Quentin Jodie
Navajo Times

CHINLE – The Arizona prep basketball season is in full swing, and some teams are still trying to carve out their niche.

Like every new season, teams must adjust to what they lost and make do what they have. In other words, they must replace role players that graduated last season with newer ones.

And while it’s still early, the Winslow boys basketball team may have found its niche under first-year coach Jerron Jordan, who previously coached the Winslow girls for 12 seasons.

On Tuesday, the Bulldogs improved their record to 5-1 overall after Tuesday night’s 80-44 win over Tuba City.

“We want to change the culture because we haven’t won a playoff game in five years,” Jordan said during last week’s freedom game with Chinle. “We want to put Winslow boys basketball back on the map. There are steps you got to take and, you know, things don’t just happen overnight.”

According to Arizona Interscholastic Association, the Winslow boys team has made eight appearances in a state title game. The last squad to do that was the 2018 3A state championship team that was coached by Scott Corum.

“We have to small steps to get the program going again, but the kids have really bought in,” Jordan said. “We have some amazing young talent in our feeder program that’s coming up and I have a great coaching staff.”

His assistants include Ferlin Nez, Brady Needens and Tyrell Young as the latter played on Winslow 2018 state championship team as a freshman.

“I’m really confident in my coaching staff and it’s always good to surround yourself around great minds,” Jordan said.

The longtime Winslow educator says he put his name in the hat when the boys coaching position opened. Before that he coached the seventh-grade middle school team that won the White Mountain middle school league.

“I took a year off coaching the girls,” Jordan said. “I was dealing with different things, and I got the opportunity to coach the seventh-grade boys and things went really well.

“When the high school job opened up, I applied like everybody else and I was selected as their head coach,” he said. “It’s obviously different after spending I spent a majority of my career on the girls side.”

And while the boys play at a faster pace, Jordan said there are things that he misses from the girls game.

“Fundamentally, they seem to pick up things a little bit faster,” he said. “But as far as coaching (the boys), I push them just as hard as I did with the girls.”

Jordan inherited a team that has five seniors on the squad. Of those seniors, only forward Jayden Curtis got a lot of playing time last season.

“He was a starter at times, and other times he came in as a reserve,” he said. “So, when you factor in those other four seniors, they didn’t receive necessarily a lot of minutes because maybe they were playing behind somebody stronger.”

Throughout his long coaching career which includes 15 years as head coach and a dozen years as an assistant under Hall-of-Fame coach Don Petranovich, who coached the Winslow girls for 32 seasons with eight state championships and eight state runner-up finishes, Jordan says “it’s not foreign for him” to bring up a freshman to the varsity team. In fact, he starts two freshmen in Jacoby Chee and Antonio Nezzie.

“I have two really good true freshmen who I believe are just as good as anybody’s guards in the small schools,” Jordan said. “My motto is we’ll play through five and we’re going to be nine deep. We’ll get into those reserves because what we like to do requires a lot of energy and a lot of people.

“We’re definitely headed in the right direction, and I have a great administration and a great support staff,” he added. “It’s a new chapter for me as a coach and one of my priorities is to get Winslow basketball back to that level that coach (Rich) Bratt had it many years ago. That’s the ultimate goal.”

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