Top player returns to area for senior year
Orlando Faith Christian scores prized prospect Chloe Kitts amid leadership changes
Nationally ranked 6-foot-3 girls basketball prospect Chloe Kitts will play her senior season at the small-school level in Orlando after spending the past two years competing at independent DME Academy of Daytona Beach.
Kitts has enrolled at Faith Christian Academy this spring in the wake of a major shakeup at the east Orange County private school.
Chloe’s dad, Jason Kitts, was hired as Faith’s new athletic director late last month. Her former youth coach, Joshua Johns, is the new head coach of a program that reached the FHSAA Class 2A state championship game in February.
“I’m really excited for this year,” Kitts said. “I’m happy I’m at Faith Christian and that I’m back in Orlando. I think we can be the best team in the state and one of the best teams in the country.”
Kitts, a Washington state native who moved with her family to Oviedo in 2015, teamed with current Hagerty players Hannah Kohn and Kiara Harris as freshmen in 2019-20 at The Master’s Academy, where they finished as Class 3A state runners-up.
Kitts ranks No. 16 nationally in her class in ESPN HoopGurlz Super 60 player rankings. She was the leading scorer and rebounder in her sophomore and junior seasons at DME and during her freshman year at Master’s.
DME finished 14th in the country in final MaxPreps Xcellent rankings and played in its first GEICO High School Nationals tournament in April.
The aspirations Kitts carried with her when joining DME, a sports academy, remain in tow while transitioning to Faith.
“That experience was great. It was fun playing at a national level,” she said. “This year Faith Christian will be playing the top teams in the state and the country, and hopefully we’ll make a run for GEICO as well.”
New direction
It’s too early to tell what the rest of the roster will look like at Faith. What’s certain is that Kitts will play alongside younger sister Kylee Kitts, a 6-2 rising sophomore, but it’s unlikely many players will remain from the 2021-22 state tournament team.
Faith’s first-year head coach Eduardo Soto and assistant Victor Rodriquez were forced out of their positions following the change in administration. Rodriguez had recently finished his 10th season as a coach at the school.
“I was blindsided, and the parents are still hurt by it,” Rodriguez said.
“They stripped me from my title and never gave me the opportunity to keep my job, and I still don’t know why,” Soto said. “Everything we did this year was nothing but good. Our girls averaged a 3.6 GPA and they never got in any trouble. We carried ourselves with class and we brought the community together.”
Soto and Rodriguez had daughters on last year’s team, which included seven players
who were Florida Virtual School students. Those girls did not attend classes at the school but were permitted to participate in extracurricular activities.
Jason Kitts insists Soto was not fired, but that he refused to accept an assistant or co-head coaching position on Johns’ staff. As of last month, Kitts said, Faith Christian requires its varsity head coaches to be full-time certified employees who work on campus.
“Why come in here all of the sudden and change that? It doesn’t make sense, unless there’s a hidden agenda behind it,” Soto said. “I told them I’d be the janitor and clean toilets for this. The only reason they put that policy in place was because they knew that was probably the only way they could get me out.”
Soto stated Friday via social media that he does not plan to coach at the high school level in 2022-23. No other coaches at Faith Christian have been replaced, according to Jason Kitts.
“We wanted Coach Soto around, but unfortunately he chose to go in a different direction,” Kitts said.
Forging ahead
Kitts, who had been operating basketball camps at Faith Christian this spring before being hired, said he was approached by the school’s headmaster and principal about the athletic director job while his daughters were involved in the admissions process.
The AD position was vacated by longtime Faith coach Tony Medina more than a year ago, not long after Faith’s football program was penalized by the Florida High School Athletic Association for the use of ineligible players.
Medina was recently named director of basketball operations at The Geneva School in Winter Park.
“They haven’t had an athletic department that’s been compliant for a while, and they asked if a leadership position would be something I was interested in. Coach Johns, based on all the years he’s known me, thought I’d be a good fit,” Kitts said.
“The big vision is new facilities, like a new football field and baseball field. There are sports that we don’t have in place right now, so my job is to create feeder programs within the Faith culture and community.”
Johns has worked at Faith the past five years. He helped boys basketball coach Andy Sarasty oversee the athletics department during the past year while also coaching Hagerty’s girls basketball team.
Johns resigned from his role at Hagerty immediately after the season due in part to fractured relationships with parents. He served six years as head coach and 10 years in all with the program. Hagerty boys basketball coach Josh Kohn, the father of Hannah Kohn, will coach the Huskies’ boys and girls teams next season.
“It wasn’t the most pleasant experience as a coach, but I put my all into coaching for those kids,” Johns said.
By reuniting with Chloe Kitts, who he began coaching when she was in fifth grade, Johns is tasked with running a program that will garner national attention from opponents and college recruiters alike.
Kit ts considered playing for Johns at Hagerty as a freshman before opting for Master’s Academy.
Now her move to a brick-andmortar school is being made to fulfill academic requirements after spending the past three years in the Florida Virtual School Flex program as a homeschool student. Kitts will spend her senior year taking online and face-to-face classes.
“I’m glad she’s coming back to the Orlando area to finish it out and leave a legacy in a proper way,” Johns said. “I’m so happy for that kid. She could have gone anywhere else in the country and played.”
When not staying busy in school or at the gym, Kitts is doing her best to live in the moment while sifting through more than 40 college offers and navigating all that comes with being a player of her stature.
“Growing up, I never thought this is where I would be,” Kitts said. “It was always my goal, but I just stay humble, and keep working, and don’t let it get to my head.”