Gravette Fills Job With Springdale Assistant

White
White

Half-a-decade and a trip to the Class 7A state basketball championship game later, Greg White is returning to a head coaching position.

Gravette hired the Springdale High assistant as its new varsity boys head coach late Monday night.

White takes over for Dustin Peters, who resigned July 14 after five years at the school to take a girls head coaching job at Scranton. White returns to a varsity head coaching position after spending five years in the Springdale school district, including the last three seasons as Springdale's varsity assistant.

"It was a chance to get back in the first seat in a really good situation," White said. "In my professional journey right now, I've branched out and really learned to teach the game and stuff I don't feel like I was very good at in the past.

"And so now, it's like you have all these new ideas and you're just dying for the chance to use them. I just feel like it's time to put what I've learned the last two summers into practice."

White inherits a Class 4A team coming off a 20-9 finish but needing to replace graduated prolific scorer Terence Pierce. The Lions finished third in the 4A-1 Conference and reached the Class 4A North Region Tournament last season.

"It's a great school district and a great administration," White said. "I'm very familiar with that conference and have a lot of respect for the coaches in the conference."

White has six years of prior varsity head coaching experience, including a stint at Shiloh Christian before taking a job coaching Springdale's George Junior High. He developed and coached the senior class that led the Bulldogs to a state runner-up finish in the spring since their eighth grade year at George.

In White's three seasons as Springdale assistant under Brad Stamps, the Bulldogs compiled a 58-27 record, including a 22-6 mark that included a co-conference championship, West No. 1 seed in the Class 7A state tournament and only the second state runner-up finish in school history.

"It's hard, because (Brad) and I are friends first," White said. "But it was also easy because of that. Because he wasn't going to try to hold me back from that. He wants the best for me like I want the best for him. We just see this as another win for our program."

Sports on 07/23/2014

Upcoming Events