Jill Pizzotti thought she was retiring from coaching 20 years ago.

Her 10-year stint as a young head coach at Saint Louis University ended in 2005 after a pair of rough seasons, and while she had plenty of assistant coaching job offers, one opportunity in the corporate world stood out.

Nike wanted her to be its manager of women’s college basketball, an “incredible job,” she said.

She moved to Portland, Ore., bought a condo and thought — though she was not yet 40: “Well, you’ve got to give up coaching at some point in your life. I’m just giving it up earlier than you would think.”

But during five years with Nike, Pizzotti found herself observing the practices of some of the greats. Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, Oklahoma’s Sherri Coale. The urge to return began to eat at her.

“They always tell you coaching is in your blood,” Pizzotti told the Tribune. “For me, it’s also a way to serve people. So I was missing a lot of that too.”

Pizzotti still had more coaching chapters ahead.

Twenty years after her initial coaching exit, she walked past a line of cheerleaders and rows of family members and colleagues seated on the Wintrust Arena basketball court Tuesday to be introduced for her second head coaching job: replacing DePaul legend Doug Bruno.

During 13 seasons as a DePaul assistant, Pizzotti never really felt like she was chasing another head coaching job, content to work under Bruno and near her family in the Chicago area. But when Bruno was sidelined by a stroke in August, she was simultaneously concerned for her mentor and invigorated when thrust into the interim head coach role this past season.

Now, after Bruno’s retirement, the 58-year-old Pizzotti is determined to carry on his legacy with the Blue Demons as she takes on her next challenge.

“I feel like I’m on a mission to get the program back where Doug wanted to get it back before he chose to retire,” Pizzotti said of a DePaul program that last made the NCAA Tournament in 2022. “That was what we talked about the last few years, like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get this thing back going.’ So I do feel a responsibility to work hard for Coach Bruno to get us back.”

Bruno believes Pizzotti’s longevity and varied experiences in the game are part of what makes her a good fit to fill his shoes.

“First and foremost, a great human being,” Bruno told the Tribune. “She cares about people, and this is a people business. … She’s very knowledgeable with the game.

“She’s had great experience to learn about the game, not only as a coach but working at Nike. She got to watch firsthand, close up, some of the best coaches on both the men’s and women’s side.”

Molded into a coach

Long before she coached alongside Bruno, Pizzotti participated in the same summer activity as thousands of other basketball-loving girls in the Chicago area over the last four-plus decades.

She was a Doug Bruno camper.

Pizzotti was the youngest of Norman and Virginia Pizzotti’s three daughters in Lombard — and the only one who loved playing sports. Her father, who played baseball and then 16-inch softball, used to say he threw the ball to all three after work, and Jill was the only one who threw it back.

Her junior high physical education teacher was the one who presented her with the Doug Bruno Girls Basketball Camp brochure, informing her that’s where serious basketball players went to hone their skills. So Pizzotti trekked to George Williams College in Wisconsin, where Bruno presided over fundamentals stations and brought in Chicago Hustle players to scrimmage for the campers at night.

She called it “a great atmosphere to get better in basketball.”

“The Doug Bruno camps are known across the country,” Pizzotti said. “He really created something amazing.”

Pizzotti knew from an early age that she wanted to be a coach, though her original vision involved teaching math and coaching high school basketball and softball. She loved school and was inspired by her coaches, including Willowbrook basketball coach Lloyd Scholl, who was demanding yet supportive and ahead of his time in bringing in male practice squads to challenge his players.

When she went on to play at Southeast Missouri State, Pizzotti changed her vision to becoming a college coach and started as a graduate assistant immediately after her playing career.

After six seasons as an assistant, including at Northern Kentucky and Indiana, she earned her first head coaching job at SLU, where she was influenced by another career mentor. Billikens men’s basketball coach Charlie Spoonhour often stopped in her office to check on her and ask what she needed. When he went to speaking engagements, he brought her along to help her network.

“‘JP, let’s go. You’ve got to come with me. I’m going to introduce you to all these people,’” Pizzotti recalled him saying. “That seemed so effortless for him, but having already been at a few schools and then seeing more examples as you go around the country, that was unusual for a men’s head coach to take that much time and care and do it so easily and be so genuine.”

Pizzotti went 113-167 during 10 seasons at SLU, with a best season of 17-14 in 2002-03. Her teams never made it to the NCAA Tournament.

As she looks back now on herself as a young coach, she remembers how much she loved it. But she also sees how she has grown — both in her understanding of the financial support and resources needed to run a program and in her recognition of the importance of team and relationship building.

The latter she learned while at Nike as she made those stops around the country to observe the coaching greats.

“What I really noticed that they did that I wasn’t doing as a young coach was spending a lot of time talking with their teams,” Pizzotti said. “When I was younger, I felt like: ‘Oh, gosh, I don’t have a lot of time to just stand here and talk to our team. We’ve got to work on denial drills and getting the ball up the floor and press offense.’

“Coach-player relationships are very important. … You’ve got to slow down a little bit and stop and take the time to just get in front of them and talk to them.”

One season after getting back into coaching as an assistant at West Virginia in 2010-11, Pizzotti joined Bruno at DePaul, where she found a home close to her home.

‘A natural time’

Pizzotti needed a minute to collect herself Tuesday as she began to address the man seated in front of her at Wintrust Arena.

She had other coaching opportunities during her 14 seasons as a DePaul assistant, but working under Bruno in a city near her parents and sisters was too good to leave. She helped Bruno lead the Blue Demons to nine of their 25 NCAA Tournament appearances in his 39-year tenure, including two of his four Sweet 16 appearances.

Along the way, she felt an impact in how Bruno was an ambassador for women’s basketball and often made decisions in the best interest of the sport.

“I hold the highest level of respect, admiration, gratitude and love for Coach Bruno,” she told the crowd Tuesday. “It is truly an honor to follow in your footsteps. Your impact on DePaul women’s basketball is immeasurable. Thank you for setting such a high standard and for leaving behind a legacy that will continue to inspire.”

That admiration was part of what made this past season difficult.

Bruno suffered a stroke on the last weekend of August and doesn’t recall much of the next 2½ months, though he was conscious and interacting with people for some of it. His recovery began to accelerate in mid-November, and though basketball was one thing that remained unaffected in his memory, he wasn’t ready to return to coaching.

DePaul turned to Pizzotti in the interim role, which was emotional, challenging and exciting all at once.

“As players and coaches, we just have so much love for Doug that it was hard sometimes to deal with our emotions and feeling bad and having to deal with that,” she said. “Then when it was time to get on the practice floor, you’ve got to compartmentalize at the highest level.

“But you also had to have a lot of compassion for our ladies. At this age, that was a big curveball thrown at them. To their credit, they persevered throughout the season. There was a lot of uncertainty. That’s hard for a lot of people.”

Four games against Top 25 teams in November and December didn’t help DePaul settle in during the uncertain time, but the Blue Demons eventually began to win more games and finished 13-19, including 8-10 and sixth place in the Big East. Bruno helped by encouraging Pizzotti, reminding her she knew what she was doing.

Watching Pizzotti take on the unexpected role helped DePaul athletic director DeWayne Peevy gain a better understanding of what she would be like as the permanent head coach.

“I got to spend a lot more time working with her through the challenges, the ups and downs of the season, whether it’s injuries or just dealing with this new world (of college sports),” Peevy said. “It gave me a lot of insight.

“Because I knew her as a person. We’ve had many talks throughout the years (with her) as an associate head coach. But this was the first time I got to have head-coach-type conversations, things I would normally be talking to Doug about, and it answered a lot of questions for me.

“One, I got to see her emotional side. I told her I had never seen her show any emotion. She was always so steadfast and steady, so it was good for me to know that that passion was really there.”

Bruno said he’s in better health now, and though he still is recovering in some areas, including his vision, he feels like he still could coach. But he also knew this spring it was the right time to step down, and he and Peevy first talked about it in March.

“As much as I think I could coach forever, I don’t know how long I would be able to,” Bruno said. “So I just don’t think it would be fair to our program, DePaul, the players in the program. It’s time to turn the page so that players that are recruited have someone that they can count on to be there for them for four years.

“And that’s really what makes it such a simple decision, an obvious decision, a happy decision. God blessed me with many years at DePaul, so I don’t walk away with any kind of angst or regret or: ‘I wish I could do this. I wish I could do that.’ It’s just a natural time.”

And Pizzotti, Bruno believes, is a natural fit.

“Jill’s a great coach,” he said. “She knows what she’s doing. She’s got experience. This is not a first-time job. She has dealt with this before, and that’s going to be unbelievably helpful. You can see the confidence she has as a result of having done this.”

Selling what’s next

Pizzotti has extensive experience as a recruiter for DePaul, but now her message needs an adjustment.

For so long, she sold Bruno. A legend in women’s basketball. A two-time assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team. A proven winner.

Now she’s selling herself and the brand of basketball she hopes to continue at DePaul. She’ll tout a system that gives players freedom on the court. She’ll promote a high-scoring, fast-paced, exciting style of play. And she’ll explain a leadership style she thinks is both demanding and invested in the players.

“I’m extremely passionate,” she said. “I am definitely a servant leader, and I’m going to end up leading with some love here. I’m very demanding, energetic, but we’re going to have fun while we’re doing this. And we’re going to work hard to have excellent player-coach relationships.”

The month leading up to Pizzotti’s introduction was one of uncertainty. The transfer portal for women’s college basketball opened four days before Bruno announced he was stepping down, and Pizzotti and the other DePaul assistants continued to recruit, trying to help build up the program.

DePaul announced a national search for Bruno’s replacement. Peevy received inquiries during the season from parties keeping watch on the potential opening, and upon Bruno’s announcement, Peevy was flooded with interested candidates.

“It really reminded me how big a job this was, and people see where it can go,” Peevy said. “But it kept coming back to my understanding of Jill and this program, but also her experience. Being an assistant at the highest level, being a head coach at Saint Louis, very young in her time, her 14 years here.

“And then this year … seeing her coach day to day and deal with the ebbs and flows of the game and adversities, those are the things I can’t help her with. Those concerns went away. If I had any doubt, it was gone watching her this year.”

He wanted to take the necessary time and not rush into the hiring. But he also had received inquiries from other athletic directors wondering if Pizzotti was available. Six days after launching the coaching search, DePaul announced Pizzotti was the answer.

“She was going to be a head coach somewhere,” Peevy said. “I wanted to make sure she was going to be here.”

Pizzotti said when she got the offer, her mind immediately turned to all she needed to do to get on track for next season — both filling out a coaching staff with some returnees and some newcomers and making sure her roster is in order. DePaul has eight players returning, and she hopes to add at least four more for next season.

Her goal as she gets deeper into recruiting is to bring in two to three high school players and one to two transfers each year and place a heavy emphasis on retaining players through relationships, team culture and a financial piece.

In the portal era, she and Bruno still believe in the possibility of keeping players around.

“As much as everybody’s making a big deal about people leaving, I still think retention of your own players — because they want to stay, because they like the culture that they’re in — that’s a major part of this,” Bruno said. “I see Jill maintaining players. … There’s still a retention aspect to this that comes from just being a good, solid human being that’s sincere and good for your players, good to your players, without enabling your players.”

Bruno could help with retaining players — in a roundabout way. He will stay on at DePaul as a special assistant to Peevy, who envisions Bruno fundraising for women’s basketball and trying to bring fans to the arena.

DePaul created the Doug Bruno Fund for Women’s Basketball Excellence to help build the school’s reserves for revenue sharing. Peevy said potential donations attached to season tickets or upticks in attendance, marketing, merchandise or licensing dollars could funnel into the fund.

Peevy also sees it as a way for people to show their appreciation for Bruno, whether they attended one of his camps or just respected what he did for women’s basketball.

As Pizzotti takes the DePaul helm permanently, she wants to honor that legacy — while not putting too much thought into what it means to step into his shoes.

“If I thought about replacing Doug, I would be overwhelmed,” she said. “I don’t even go there. I mean, you can’t replace Doug Bruno. I’m fortunate that I’ve been with him for 14 years and have learned so much about DePaul and the roadmap of how to be successful and to have been mentored by Doug through the years.

“But it’s probably the most just feeling an obligation and a desire to do this for Doug, to get our program back. Because it doesn’t even give enough credit to say, ‘Oh, he built an unbelievable foundation.’ It’s more than a foundation.”