New Prairie promotes Ryan Curless to girls basketball head coach

New Prairie chose stability over a reset, promoting Ryan Curless to girls basketball head coach and keeping the Cougars’ next chapter rooted in the same program he has helped build for six years.

Curless moved up after six seasons as the junior varsity coach, and the hire also keeps the job in the hands of a New Prairie alum who already knows the school’s athletic culture from the inside. He also coaches the Cougars’ JV baseball team, so this is not a leap into unfamiliar territory. It is a continuation of a relationship that already stretches across the building, the gym and the rest of the athletic department.

The move comes after Aimee Litka resigned April 2 following six seasons at the varsity helm. Litka leaves behind a resume that raised the bar for the program, most notably by guiding New Prairie to its first sectional championship since 2000 in 2024. That 24-year drought-breaker changed the standard in New Carlisle, and it is the backdrop for every decision that follows.

Litka’s own path helps explain why the handoff matters. She was part of Saint Joseph’s 2005 state championship team as a player before continuing her career at Valparaiso, then returned to the area and helped restore New Prairie to sectional relevance. Curless now inherits a program that has proven it can reach that level, but also has to prove it can stay there.

The Cougars’ internal network around Curless is already taking shape. Shauna Tewell, New Prairie’s girls flag football head coach and another New Prairie alumna, will serve as the lead varsity assistant coach. The school’s athletic department lists Curless among its coaching staff, and an archived staff listing on MaxPreps also showed Curless, Tewell, Clem Litka and Aimee Litka on the girls basketball staff, a sign that the program’s current structure has been built from people who already know one another.

That kind of continuity can matter most in the next eight months, when summer workouts turn into roster decisions and those decisions show up in February and March. New Prairie remains in a demanding Class 3A Sectional 19 with Culver Academies, Glenn, Mishawaka Marian, Plymouth and South Bend Saint Joseph for 2024-25 and 2025-26, so the ceiling will be tested quickly. The Cougars are not starting over. They are trying to keep climbing without losing the identity that got them there.