GREG WHITE – THADEN SCHOOL (AR) BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 974

Website – https://thadenathletics.com/sports/boys-basketball

Email – gwhite32@att.net

Twitter – @GregWhite32

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Greg White will begin his first season as the Boys’ Basketball Head Coach at Thaden School in Bentonville, Arkansas this winter after leading Bentonville West High School for 8 years, compiling a 133-97 record.  Greg has more than two decades of coaching experience and has won more than 250 games as a head coach. He has been a featured speaker at numerous USA Basketball Coach Academies as well as a member of the coaching staff at the Snow Valley Basketball Camp in Iowa.

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Jot down some coaching nuggets as you listen to this episode with Greg White, Boys’ Basketball Head Coach at Thaden School in Bentonville, Arkansas.

What We Discuss with Greg White

• Reflections on the life and impact of Coach Tates Locke
• The decision to leave Bentonville West (AR) High School for Thaden School
• His desire to impact coaches as an athletic director
• “Don’t be afraid to be the first, don’t be afraid to be last but it’s gotta be right.”
• “I haven’t had a technical in three years. It’s not because I don’t care. It’s just because I don’t like being upset. I don’t like being mad.”
• “We found a way to hide hard work. Put a smile on their face, having fun.”
• ” The centerpiece is going to have to be the collective excitement of what we’re going to build and teach.”
• “We’ve got the blueprint already for what it looks like to start a program, how to have success in a hurry.”
• Coaching multiple teams at Thaden and having no assistant coaches
• Working with multiple coaches across all sports
• “You get one chance to be a dad. You get one chance to be a husband.”
• “I will never talk about a basketball team as a family because my family is way more important than any team I’ve ever coached.”
• “You take a polar bear and put him in the jungle, he’s not going to be a polar bear very well. But if you put a polar bear in the tundra, he’s the best there is, he’s an apex.”
• “We just wanted to build an environment and our environment led to winning.”
• His experiences with USA Basketball and being a court coach
• “I try not to say no to a basketball moment.”
• “We’re the last of the cowboys. We’re the last guys sharing what’s been shared with us.”
• “It’s not gonna fall on your lap. You’ve got to go put out that effort. Go put out the effort, watch the game pay you back.”
• The impact of Coach Don Showalter
  

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THANKS, GREG WHITE

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TRANSCRIPT FOR GREG WHITE – THADEN (AR) SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 974

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, but I am pleased to be welcoming back to the podcast after I guess a slight delay here where we haven’t had Greg on for a long time. Greg White, now the head basketball coach at the Thaden School, assistant athletic director in a new position.  Leaving Bentonville West High School after building that program up in the state of Arkansas. Greg, welcome back to the Hoop Heads Pod, man.

[00:00:30] Greg White: It is great to be back. It’s been a while. Lots changed. We’re going to talk about all that. You guys have continued your success. That’s been fun for me to keep up with and always enjoying.

There’s few titles in my life that I hold dear. One is being a Snow Valley guy, which you and Jason know all about. And one is being a Hoop Heads guy seeing what you guys have done. It’s been awesome watching you grow the game, share the game always pick something up and it’s great to be back.

[00:01:02] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. We are thrilled to be able to have you back. Like I said, it’s been a while. Want to start with a guy that both of us have been connected to for a long time. I played against teams that Tates Locke coached back in the day when I was a player. You’ve obviously spent a tremendous amount of time with him.

I know he’s been a mentor of yours, recently passed away. Talk a little bit about your reflections on Tates Locke, who he was as a coach, who he was as a human being, and sort of the impact he had on you.

[00:01:34] Greg White: You know, when you hear people, it’s one of those, when I got the text message from Dave and from Showalter, I just talked to Coach Locke earlier that month, I remember finding out the first time he texts, he would always, I’d call him and never answered, he always get back to me, but then like one day we’re sitting near a cafeteria at Waverly at Warburg college.

And he said, yeah, I was sending a text and we’re all like, you text and like, it was just Tates being Tates and for anyone that spent time around him, my first interaction with snow valley was Tates picking me up at the airport. And my plane was late and I’m texting with Coach Showalter and he’s like, yeah, it takes a lot.

Coach Locks will pick you up. I’m like, yeah, right. You know, this guy’s a legend and there he is waiting on me. And that was my first interaction with Snow Valley. And so much of my basketball career this is my 24th year but I tell people I’ve only been a real, I wouldn’t say a real coach.

I’ve only really learned to teach the game since my time when I started going to Snow Valley with Coach Showalter and Dave and with Slyk and Coach Perth, but Tates was always that one figure in my coaching world outside of my high school coach that I just turned to, and for whatever reason, whether it was fate, him picking me up at the airport whatever happened, it was just amazing to have a man like that in my life. And so many things in my life happened at Snow Valley whether it was personal professional. I changed jobs there twice, literally on campus.

And when I took the Bentonville West job I was there for a year. And I’ll never forget, I called Tates and I said, I need you to come help coach. And he drove from Jacksonville, Florida to Bentonville, Arkansas and spent three days with me and our coaches and our players. And I always tell people that was when the foundation started.

The impact he had in those three days changed the trajectory of that program and his impact on me. And so the last time we worked together at Snow Valley, people know Snow Valley Tates, but Tates would take pictures. He was the superstar. He was the rock star there.

But on that last day, he was never around because he never wanted to be called out. You know, the big thank you, the celebration of Tates. And the last day he was there, I’ll never forget. He came by he tapped me on the shoulder. Both my kids were there. I was with Nick LaGalbo. Leans over and tells me, Hey, I love you.

See you soon. And that was really, that’s the last time we saw each other in person. We dealt with COVID and everything else kind of changed. And what an impact he had on the game of basketball. I think that when he passed, when you went on Twitter and social media, Obviously, the Snow Valley family of coaches was out there, but the ESPN commentators, the professional players and the professional world that talked about him just special.

You know, and I think all of us, he’s impacted. We all try to go on and do as much as we can to keep that going. To teach who Tates Locke was and whether it’s through box drills or when I talk about quotes, he used to say, and how we teach defense. Defense is a bar room fight and your kids look around at you like, what’s a bar room fight and he was just timeless.

That’s what I tell a lot of people the ones that got to be around him understand that those that didn’t he was timeless he was who he was and he was good at it. He was going to be in tapes.

[00:05:31] Mike Klinzing: There’s no doubt. I know when I was at Snow Valley the last time and he taught one of the clinics and just the enthusiasm and the clarity with which he was able to get his points across at the age that he was.

And just, you could tell that he was a guy who, if there was anybody who you could define as. I think to me, Tates Locke defined what a coach was because he was a guy who loved the game, but also loved the people around the game, which is why someone like you who was around him so often, it’s why you feel such a connection to him because it wasn’t just about the basketball of which he was an incredible basketball mind, but it was also about his impact and his ability to connect with people that I think made him really special. And you think back to sitting in the cafeteria and let’s put it this way, his table in the cafeteria at Wartburg was always packed. Let’s put it that way.

[00:06:37] Greg White: Yeah. It was my first time there Alan Stein got me hooked up with Dave Slaughbach and with Coach Cho and Alan’s only advice to me was don’t talk at lunch.  Just listen. And I was like, that’s. Right and I didn’t understand what that meant until you’re lucky enough to be close enough to sit with those guys and, and just listen to the stories and when he’s talking about when he got started at West Point with coach and that was one of the times that I always knew he was human.

I know it’s funny to talk about him like this. We but when coach Knight was getting really, really toward the end Tates, we had a long conversation about it. Tates didn’t want to go see him. And I was like, you’ve got to go,you’re going to, you’re going to not want, that’s something you’re going to want to know you did.

And he went and saw Coach Knight and he said their entire conversation, Indiana never came up or the, the Olympic team, all the great things Coach Knight did never came up. It was, he only wanted to talk about their guys at West Point. And so it’s one of those, like. Like you said, Mike, like this guy, we get to sit there, break bread, tell stories with a guy who is in the same room and in the same conversations with the Adolph Rupp and McGuire.

And when he talks about Johnny, he was talking John Wooden. And to watch him at his age, to watch him at his age, teach defense. And pour into it a 12 year old kid who’s maybe going to play 2A or 3A basketball somewhere in the Midwest. It was something special. It was really a great thing for all of us.

[00:08:18] Mike Klinzing: Talk a little bit about how his influence sort of played into the decision that you’ve made recently to leave Bentonville West and go to the Thaden School in a new role. Tell me a little bit about how that decision came to pass.

[00:08:37] Greg White: You know, this summer the item was that I’ve been at West since 2016 summer, we had just started open the school and I just got to Snow Valley, was talking to Tates and show about it and really and then obviously Tates came and was there for a year, the summer between year one, year two, he came and spent time with us.

And as we just really tried to build everything was based on a Snow Valley model. And I kept telling him the last time we had a real conversation was about a kid of mine Tucker Anderson, he had gone. And I was like, coach, this kid’s got a chance. And I would send him video.

And he would watch and he’d always say, just don’t screw him up, that was his only advice and so just coach him. Don’t screw him up. It’s all what Tates would say all the time. And so Tucker was going through the portal and so I was texting Coach Locke and I always text, I text two people on Father’s Day.

Regularly one is my high school coach, one was Coach Locke. And as I was going through the transfer portal and trying to keep him from getting on tangent a little bit about everything, I could tell he missed, he told me he missed the game. His health was declining and he was missing the game.

And so we talk about regrets in our life. One of the things I regret was that I just didn’t get in the car or get on a plane and head to Jacksonville. But we always joked about this too. If Tates knew you were coming, he probably wouldn’t open the door. He just didn’t want anybody to see that’s just how he was.

And so as we were going through, I kept kind of stirring, like I needed something more. I didn’t know what else I could do at West. We won a conference championship in 2023. We lost 90 percent of our offense. And made it to the Elite Eight the following year. You know, just really had kids that bought in.

Lane Jethko would have been a starter for us as a junior. Could have left early for college football. He’s a 6’9 300 pound left tackle for Rice. And we talked and he came and he kind of just kept the program going. And there’s still good things like that. But I could tell there was a disconnect with me and I didn’t know if I would just, I had done everything I could do there.

And so when I talked to last time, I really had a conversation with coach Locke. I said, Hey, I think I’ve done what I can do here. I’m looking for something else. And he said, something will present itself and don’t stop coaching. You’re not done with that yet. And I said, I don’t think I’m done coaching, but I know I need a different lane.

And that was our, kind of our last conversation. No, I didn’t know that. And so two things happened this past spring, I would say, was that once I headed to, I was on the USA Junior National staff this year for the first time. And that was always one of those things that I always wanted to be able to coach on a national level.

And so I got the invite, I got to go to a mini camp in Phoenix. And while I was in Phoenix the Arkansas Razorback basketball job came open. And as you know, as everyone’s aware, John Calipari left Kentucky for Arkansas and just the excitement in his voice at the press conference the wow factor and the why the national media, why would you do this?

You know, and don’t get me wrong. I’m a, I mean, I’m born and raised in Arkansas, Eddie Sutton. The family coach Richardson you know, and must’ve done a great job here, but when Calipari was making a change and people couldn’t understand, it just kind of stirred more with me.

And so I’d lost coach Locke as a mentor. I see Calipari making a change and my boss who had hired me that at West was at the Thaden school and he reached out and I said, no talked and just wasn’t the right fit. And people that know me know I really have wanted to, I’m intrigued with being an athletic director because some of the opportunities Coach Showalter has given me in USA Basketball, when I get to speak at coaches academies, I like helping coaches.

I’d hired Kayla Short, she was one of our assistants the only female assistant in Arkansas. At 6A level was amazing. On the boys side had a former player, Thomas Powell, had been a head coach. Kevin Snyder is a former college coach who was our assistant. So I felt like I was empowering our staff to go be head coaches.

And I kind of just fell in love with the idea and Coach Passmore called back and we’d hosted the Hoop South together. We’d done a lot of great things. We’d start a program. He said, how about coming to be the assistant athletic director and coach basketball. Now people from Arkansas know other people, like we have six classifications here.

So Bentonville West is a school of 2,400, big 2,300 seat facility. Bentonville is the home of Walmart. Families are moving here like crazy. We have two 6A schools. We had just beaten Bentonville for the fifth straight time. Things were really going well for us. And I announced I’m leaving for a 3A school.

3A private school leaving a public school going to a 3A private school with about 300 kids. And we don’t have a gym on campus. And so it kind of, it stirred that the excitement of building again, now we’re literally building brick and mortar you know, and trying to build some excitement with the, with the community of families that it’s at that school and so yeah, so that’s where we’re at.

[00:14:08] Mike Klinzing: All right, let’s go backwards first. And you look back over your time at West, what do you think were the keys to building that program to where you got it? If you look at the totality of West, what are some keys to getting the program to where it was when you’re, where it is when you, when you leave?

[00:14:35] Greg White: I think the biggest thing going, when you look back at it, it’s fun. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and let me, and let me say this. I was given that opportunity to go there by coach Pasmore and, and by Mr. Poore, who was a superintendent at the time. We didn’t know what we were getting into.

The last 6A school that opened didn’t win a game for two years. There was a school, a 6A school that just opened three years ago. They won two games in two years and we come in and win. I think 12, our first year, 19 we, we qualified for a state term by winning our way through our, our conference schedule.

We had no idea what we were getting into. But I think the biggest thing is we approached everything different. I’ve got my circle that I rely on really a lot or some guys that are just really, really think, you know Mike Neighbors at Arkansas is one of my best friends.

And if I’ve learned anything from him, don’t be afraid to be the first, don’t be afraid to be last but it’s gotta be right. You’ve got to make sure it’s the right decision at the right time for you. And I think we just approached it different.

We didn’t come in I think we, in eight years, I think we had our players up at 6am, maybe twice. We found other ways to be tough. We went against the grain, a lot of, a lot of things. We took days off in the fall. We would practice 90 minutes max. We never went over 90 minutes.

We did this cause we were talking. We found ways to incorporate multi sport athletes. A lot of people talk about it. We actually, last year, our rotation three, four of our top six were multi sport kids. And so we just found a way, like we’ve talked about this on here before, and I’ve talked in settings with coaches, I learned so much from COVID about being grateful in a balance in life that I never wanted to be miserable as a coach again.

I haven’t had a technical in three years. It’s not because I don’t care. It’s just because I don’t like being upset. I don’t like being mad. And it’s totally different from people that know me in the past. I mean, a lot of people found me on Twitter and I would start a fight. And if you told me something, you could tell me the sun was blue and I was going to, I would agree or disagree just to argue. And I just had to get away from that. I wanted to be happy and I wanted to enjoy my job and I wanted to enjoy coaching. And so I think going back to your original question, we just did things different at West.

We found a way to be contrary to what everyone else was doing. If you were trying to teach toughness and that meant 6am workouts and we didn’t do that or that meant a time. I don’t remember the last time we ran in practice at West because our practices were so fast and we were moving all the time.

But I think we found a way to hide hard work. With a smile on their face, having fun. And that’s what made it special. And we can be wrong. We had good players come through there. We had nine college players in eight years. We had a kid that talked about earlier, Tucker Anderson went on to be you know, the Atlantic sun freshman of the year.

He transferred. He’s going to be at Utah state. Dylan Bailey went division two for three years Wofford university last year. But we’ve had good players come through. We’ve had good coaches. But we found a way to, when we weren’t the best, to find a way to compete with the best. And I think it’s just because we thought different and we just did what worked for us and that was having fun with it while still working hard.

[00:18:31] Mike Klinzing: Now, do you think that at Thaden, that those lessons that you just shared are all of those transferable? And is there anything that you have to tweak in terms of Because you’re talking about, again, the different sides of the school, the public versus private, how are you approaching the new challenge and kind of trying to draw from the experience that you had at West?

[00:19:00] Greg White: Well, the thing that drew me to Thaden, number one was obviously my familiarity with my boss. But it’s a downtown, it’s literally, it’s a campus nestled in downtown Bentonville. And people from over in Bentonville, it’s the home office for Walmart. Walmart, and my campus, I can get out, I can walk off my campus, it’s a city block with beautiful buildings, and it’s open, and it just has a great feel to it.

But I can walk two blocks either direction and be in a Walmart corporate building. And so when they built the school, they didn’t have athletics in mind. And once they realized that how important athletics are, which we all know how to the balance and the whole, the whole being of teaching and education that’s when they hired Coach Passmore.

And he had a coach left and he had an opening to call me. And so there’s a little bit of intrigue, like why would you leave a 6A school for all this and that? And so that’s created a little bit of buzz for us. But the thing for me is just finding it’s, we were able to do something really special at West.

And we kind of feel like we found that code of balance. But now it’s, can you take it, we’ve got to drive 15, 20 minutes just to practice to, we rent a facility for practice. We have families from all over Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri. You know, it’s not where at West, one of the ways we built I stopped using the word culture, by the way, I use environment and I’ll talk about that later if you want, but the way we built that environment there.

Every second the kids wanted to be in the gym, I was there. I mean, I live four minutes from the West Campus. I live about 15 from Thaden. But if a kid called and said, Hey coach, can you get me in the gym? If I couldn’t be up there with them, I could get there and unlock it. I don’t work there anymore.

I can say, yeah, I’d go unlock the gym, leave the kid there. You know, but like Yeah, we use that gym as a centerpiece. So I don’t have that centerpiece right now. So now the centerpiece is going to have to be the collective excitement of what we’re going to build and teach.

I’m excited about just getting back to really having to teach basketball. I was with the greatest, and I say this all the time, I had the greatest staff in basketball in Arkansas, and that’s just my opinion, but I’m not wrong. I had Kayla Short Thomas Powell, Kevin Snyder.

I feel like a football coach last year on the sideline because Kayla does all of ours, she was our strength coach. She had all of our special situations. She helped just everywhere. And so she was that, she was like a special teams coach Thomas, who was a former player of mine was really focused on the defensive end.

And Kevin like I said, who had coached in college, became a good friend was in the offensive guy. So here I am a high school coach with an offense coordinator, defense coordinator, special teams coordinator. And so I just got to manage the game. And I had head coaches for each session. And they, I had veto power and they knew that.

But it was such an empowering staff that we all got along. We all were bought into each other. And now I’m going to a place where I don’t have an assistant. I’m going to coach seventh grade through 12th grade. And so I get to go back to just, oh yeah, it’s wild. And so I get to go back to just teaching basketball and my son, Evan Who you’ve met and Evan’s a player at Arkansas, Fort Smith.

He’s like, dad, he said, the growth you’re going to see is why it’s what you’re going to love. And my oldest son, Hayden, who just finished his grad assistant years at Dallas Baptist and is looking for a college job and loves coaching. And he’s like, it’s going to be like Snow Valley almost every day for you, because you’re just going to go teach basketball.

And he said, that’s your favorite time of the year and I’ll be at Snow Valley in a couple of weeks. Yeah, it is. That’s, I mean, it’s the rebirth. Clay Moser, a good friend of mine now, who is on the staff at Arkansas, he’s my coaching. I told Clay, I said, Clay, you got to go to Snow Valley. It’s like being reborn.

Jacob Randall said that it’s a rebirth for coaches. And Clay went and he’s like, you were absolutely right. I love basketball again. I’m back in love with the game. And so I think going from a 6A to a 3A, and you’re going to be wrong, the 3A is good, and there’s good coaches, there’s good players you all, everybody knows that, there’s good players at every level, there’s good coaches at every level, but for me it’s, it’s a step away from a program that, for the time being, \we’re going to get Thaden there but for the time being, for the next year, 18 months, two years, whatever time it is, It’s a time for me to get back to just the real raw level of teaching basketball and trying to build seeing where that, oh yeah, we did this at West.

Let’s try that here, but without always without bringing up what we done in the past, just knowing. We’ve got the blueprint already for what it looks like to start a program, how to have success in a hurry. But that it takes players, it takes some talent, it takes some luck. But that’s what I’m really excited about.

Plus I get to the athletic director side.  I know that’s where I want to see my career go. If it’s the way things play out, if the Lakers hadn’t hired JJ Redick and called me, I might’ve went, I don’t know. You know? So for right now, I’m an assistant athletic director and a basketball coach.

And I’m excited about that. I’m excited about that change. I don’t know. No, it’s a, it’s a really, it’s nice. Most of us know this in most parts of the state, most parts of the country you know, you have freshman games, one night, JV games, one night, Varsity games. And so it just feels like when basketball season starts, you live in your car, you sleep in your bed, but you’re always in the gym.

We’re gonna, we pull in this league they play a freshman game followed by two varsity games. And so I’ll just coach the freshman level team which is For a smaller school in Arkansas, and it’s like this in some other states, I know, 789 is what they call a junior high team. So I’ll have a junior high team and I’ll have a varsity level, JV level team.

Now once we add if the school grows, we draw some more players and we’ll be able to add more teams and I’ll probably add an assistant then. But for right now, it’s just going to be me till we make some additions, but yeah, it’ll be fun. My first job ever, I coached boys and girls at a small Catholic school, both junior high teams, both high school teams, both seventh grade.

And so for smaller schools in Arkansas, like it’s kind of not heard of to have one or two coaches. But it’ll be a change. I talked to Kayla and, and Thomas and Kevin, if not daily every other day. I’m going to miss that obviously. Just the camaraderie and their knowledge and how much better they made me.

But I was going through, I spent about 30 minutes every day just looking at playbooks, things like that. And it’s fun for me now that when I open up something you know, it has Coach Powell, Coach Short, Coach Snyder. And so that’s how I’ll stay connected with them and, and kind of build and take all aspects of the program.  So, should be amazing.

[00:26:29] Mike Klinzing: When you think about the players that you have that are already a part of the Thayden program and then obviously as you try to grow the program and make it better, you’re going to have to be able to get players in the door. So have you guys talked about, as an athletic department and you obviously as the head basketball coach, have you talked about the plan, the commitment to the basketball program and just trying to get more players, more student athletes in the door of the school.

And is that kind of part of the plan to not only go to the basketball program, but obviously when you’re talking about on the private school level, you’re also trying to grow and improve the school and get more kids involved in, in, in being a part of the school itself. So what’s kind of the plan there?

[00:27:14] Greg White: I think just, you’ve got to find, there’s obviously there’s kids that have played. So the school’s been open six years. They started athletics four years ago they just joined, we play in a public school league they just joined that, and so there’s a little, it went from guys are kind of interested and so there’s a few guys there the number one question when I took the job was, oh, you’re going to be recruiting players to come there.

And I was like, yeah, I mean, we hope there’s families move in that, that want to be a part of it. And number one, it’s the number one private school in Arkansas. The education is amazing that they get there. A young lady last year got accepted to Caltech which I think has like a 3 percent acceptance rate.

And so there’s, yeah, there’s ways to recruit there, whether it’s the education. Now you have the athletic piece, but it’s going to be a hard thing. So I think what I’m excited about is just finding the guys that are on campus that are already committed to being there. They’re there for education.

And I mean, I may have people that are trying basketball for the first time. And with my background, whether it’s Snow Valley, whether it’s with the USA Basketball Camps, whether it’s with the USA National Team, whether it’s Playing in hoop hall or the Nike hoop fest where your teams are walking down the hallway and Cooper Flagg’s there.

And now I’m going to, Hey, I may be having a guy that, which I just want to try to see if I like basketball. Come on out, man. And that’s the joy for me is to see how can we build this? At first we’re going to, obviously we’re going to cook with what’s in the cupboard. That’s what we’ll make her dinner with, but are we going to do something special enough that’s going to draw families from Northwest Arkansas and want a great education and want a chance to be a part of a basketball program that has done some cool things. So that’s going to be the fun part to see.

[00:29:13] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Tell me a little bit about the athletic director piece of it. What part of that aspect of the job are you looking forward to and kind of what’s the sort of the overlying philosophy of kind of where you want your career to head in that respect as opposed to being in a classroom all day when you’re at West.

[00:29:37] Greg White: The biggest thing is that there’s really good coaches there. We have I’m counting on my hand real fast. Seven different sports. We don’t have football. We have all sports that are really, really good coaches that are there.

And so that’s what we’re going to be, like, helping build. Taking some things that I know from my experience with Snow Valley. From USA Basketball and showing how this works with other coaches, being more organized, finding a way to grow your program and relying on what we did at West. We were able to do some things that were, this is my 20, be going my 24th year.

So I’ve made a ton of mistakes. And, but we’ve had some success too. And so it’s, The idea of managing people, adults, players, trying to build an entire athletic program that draws I mean, to the student population. And it also balances out with what we do academically, which is amazing. So that’s the fun part for me is seeing that side of the business.

All of us have run our own team before and all of us have been mad at our athletic director before. Well, now I’m getting to see some of those like decisions about, wait a second, like that makes no sense. Why would we let our basketball coach do this? Why we’re trying to balance this out and just how intrinsic it is, like schedules for everything, presentation, making sure all your coaches are certified and licensed.

And so that’s the part I’ve started really respecting what those guys do. But it’s just kind of fun to, I think a lot of us get it very specialized on our own little island. And like you may, we all talk about multi sport, but like we actually felt like we did it with our team.

And we support other teams and now it’s I can’t just make a decision. I mean, I guess I could, but I’m not going to make a decision that only benefits boys basketball. Like I have to look, I have to make decisions now that affect every team and every and as we try to you know, gain some you know, like I said, we don’t have, we don’t have an on court, on campus facility. And so as we try to build the reputation of program, I mean, If our girls basketball team, which their girls team won conference last year, but if we only have one good girls basketball team like you think about UConn, well, UConn men’s basketball is really good too, national champ but if they have, if they were only relying on UConn volleyball, For their basketball facility or things.

And so you, it’s just really kind of looking at all the puzzle pieces that I think, I think we all used to be this way. I don’t know what changed. Maybe it’s cause there’s year round club, whether it’s events and there’s year round with every sport. And I think we all kind of got off our own in our own little world and stopped thinking about everybody else.

But now it’s a chance for me to really invest in other coaches and other teams Help them have success, which is we all know success is contagious.

[00:32:49] Mike Klinzing: I think that multi sport thing, Greg, is something that it’s something that a lot of, a lot of coaches talk about and, or at least they talk about it publicly.

And then behind closed doors, it’s like, yeah, but I’d rather have. My players all playing basketball, which you can completely, again, you can completely understand why. And I often hear coaches and I’ve probably said it myself that you kind of got to build your program with basketball guys.

And I know you’ve probably heard people say that too. And if you don’t have kids who are just basketball. Then it’s going to be hard to pull a kid off the football field in October or November and get them caught up with all the kids who are playing basketball year round. And I do think that you make a great point that sports today, again, compared to when you and I were kids, where you just went from one sport to the next, to the next, to the next just based on the season of the year or whatever. And there were many more kids who were playing multi sports because now it’s just, it’s harder. Let’s face it. It’s harder to play multiple sports both from just a time standpoint of how do I get to all the things that the basketball coach is doing and all the things that the football coach wants me to do.

And then I got baseball and how do I just physically get to those places? And then two, you’re also now competing with kids who are playing baseball year round or playing basketball year round. Whereas In the 80s, early 90s, maybe you weren’t, you weren’t competing in the same way with the kid who was playing year round because there were more kids playing again, those multiple sports.

And so it is interesting to hear you say that you kind of are able to step back sort of out of that just basketball coach cocoon. And when you’re the athletic director, you can look at it from a more holistic standpoint, and then to your point, work with the different coaches to be able to facilitate giving the kids a better experience, which ultimately.

I guess one of the biggest things that I always try to come back to through the podcast is, is that you kind of want to frame everything through the lens of what’s best for the kids. And again, I know that as a coach, you have to do what’s best for your program and individual kids fit into that and whatever.

But ultimately, I think when I say the kids, I don’t mean an individual, one individual kid. I mean, collectively as a group. And so to be able to do that from an athletic director’s chair is obviously different and you’re able to have more influence than you are just if you’re coaching one program, if that makes sense to kind of what your thought process is.

[00:35:22] Greg White: Yeah, no, exactly. I think anytime they talk to kids that graduate is there something you wish you had done different? And they always say I wish I would have tried this sport. And then you think about it’s I, I’d say this all the time to people. It’s not the youth and it’s not the problem with you sports.

It’s not the youth and it’s not the you know, and we coach Rippy was the, he was the long time. He was a coach at Bentonville high school, our rival. And the fun thing is from the outside in people didn’t think we liked each other because it was good for TV it’s good for ratings. But he’s one of my closest friends and I’ve grown so much because of our relationship and we had a good rivalry we, Games were close.

It was back and forth. It was packed, but you know, he just retired. And toward the end you know, we would have long conversations just about life and about coaching. And we can’t, every time we’d talk to each other, we’d just say, Hey, it’s the PTS and people were like, what is, and it pays the same.

It pays the same, whether we’re working 23 hours and losing or 23 hours and winning let’s enjoy ourself. And so we, we really took that to heart with our team and our coaches.  I could tell if I could tell any coach that’s listening it’s you get one chance. You don’t coach a lot of games.

You get one chance to be a dad. You get one chance to be a husband. I spent a lot of time people know my story. I’m divorced a father to I’ve spent way too much time in the gym and my kids were young that I wish I could have back. And so our coaching staff that were just my previous staff at West.

We worked really hard together. We might work hard at home when their kids were asleep. But as soon as we finished, sometimes we had coaches that would beat the kids out the door to go be with their family. And I had no problem with that. I was the single guy on staff.

I was the old guy, the head coach. I had no problem with our assistants getting out of there to go be home with their family. And when my boys were here for where they were traveling or I need to go see them. You know, we started putting that and people talk family first people preach all that.

I don’t, I don’t, I will never. Talk about a basketball team as a family because my family is way more important than any team I’ve ever coached. I care about those guys and I love them in different ways, but they’re not my sons. I have two sons and I think that’s one of the things coaches we talked about earlier, what made us different.

We talk different. We don’t say culture cause we can’t define it. We talked about our environment at Bentonville West basketball while it was a healthy environment. And what that environment led to was wins, and it led to players who were going to go play Division I football not leaving in December, but staying to play their high school senior year because Lane wanted to pass on what basketball meant to him from there.

What he had learned from Tucker, and what Tucker had learned from Evan, and Evan had learned from Dylan, and from Collier, and then from Hayden, and so. We talk about our environment and you take a polar bear and put him in the jungle, he’s not going to be a polar bear very well.

But if you put a polar bear in the tundra, he’s the best there is he’s an apex. And so we just wanted to build an environment and our environment led to winning. And that’s hopefully what we’re going to do at Thaden is we’re going to build an environment that attracts the right type of kids, the right type of families that want to come in and want to compete at a high level academically and athletically.  And that’s the environment we want to build.

[00:39:03] Mike Klinzing: I have no doubt that you’re going to get that done sooner rather than later. Let’s talk about your USA basketball experiences since the last time we talked. I know that again, the first time you and I met was when you were a speaker here at the USA basketball coaches clinic in Cleveland.

That was back in man, 2018. But just tell me a little bit about what your experiences have been and just how special it is to be able to be a part of that national program.

[00:39:31] Greg White: So I have moments in my coaching career that I have a good friend, Seth, that we have sports tears and, and I was as a December as a day walking into practice Coach Short had just finished, had taken the team to weight room.

I was cleaning, finish up my notes for practice in the office. Don’t know why, opened up my email. There’s an email, USA Basketball. Click on it real quick and there’s the invite. You’ve been invited to be on the mini camp coaching staff in April and sports tiers. You know, my grandfather was a veteran and when people talk about things they wish they had done, that was one of the things I kind of wish I had served.

And I didn’t. And not obviously not comparing being a USA basketball coach to what our soldiers have done, but there’s a chance to be a part of something bigger than yourself and to have the color, have that badge on you and wear those colors on your chest. And so I got to go and they were great coaches.

Coach White, they’re actually playing right now. They, they won or they’re playing at Westworth. Yeah. Yes, and, and so Charm and, and Fitch and and Chet and all the guys that are there and Michael that’s over there with them, but I get to meet all these great people. So the coolest thing in the experience the players are amazing.

I mean, you’re walking through the airport and you have on a USA basketball shirt and everything’s first class, by the way, they, they come, they pick you up. But as you’re walking through the airport and you see a young man in a USA basketball t shirt and he sees you in a shirt most of the time there’s pleasantries.

Everybody’ll nod, kind of, you know. Every young man that I encountered that weekend would stop, come over and shake your hand and hey coach how are you and introduce himself and you start understanding it’s a business and just the competition level. Like we had 60 something kids there and that 60 was trimmed down to 30 for the U18s which we dominated there and then there were kids from our camp there U17s that go from 30 down to 12 and it’s just high level competition.

I used to tell Coach Show all the time, you have the hardest job in basketball, because those guys cut future pros. Like, you think you’re, you’ve got a bad ass high school player, and you’re trying to, you’re a high school coach, and you’re trying to get your roster, those guys cut guys that are going to be pros.

And it’s Sharman the original Coach White, so I tell him he’s my Shar says it best, like, it’s not the, it’s not always the best 12, it’s got to be the right 12, because Is the guy that’s going to be in seat it doesn’t matter what level of basketball. Nobody’s playing 12 much in a game.

They just don’t. I mean, you look at the NBA, their rotations don’t go 12 deep and so finding who can accept being 11, 10, 11, 12 when they’re used to being number one on their team. You know, it’s, it’s amazing. And I enjoy my experience with those guys. We get to learn about what they go through.

And it was fun when I got to announce, I was going to fade. And some of the, some of the text messages I got are from those guys from the mini camp you know, one of the most, one of the best guys that we got to work with there is Charlie Ward. And so me being me, I’d see the name, I see the list.

I’m like, oh, Charlie Ward. I’m like, that’s weird. There’s a guy named Charlie Ward in Tallahassee, Florida, coaching high school basketball and Tallahassee Florida state. There was a guy that won the Heisman and went on to play in the NBA and it’s him. And he is just one of the nicest men. And well it sends me a motivational stuff and just, you’re like, what a great game, like this game has given me so much Just opportunity.

I grew up in a school of 500 K through 12 and now I’m at a school back, back to a small school. Got to do a lot of great things between here, between the starting point and where I’m at now. I’ve got to do so many great fun things with basketball. But I don’t think I’m done. I think I’ve got some more fun ahead of me.

And it’s a lot of that fun is going to be building you know, building the Thaden program and seeing where that goes.

[00:43:54] Mike Klinzing: It really is when you start talking about the game of basketball. I don’t know, you and I have had this conversation many times and I’ve heard you say it so often, but just what the game of basketball has done for me and for guys like you, like, there’s no way I can ever repay back.

When I look at Again, all the good things in my life from my family to just who I am as a person to my friends, to colleagues, to just the things that I do on a day to day basis. Like, so much of it ultimately comes back to the game of basketball and what it has done for me. And like, we started the podcast.

Talking about Coach Locke and just his legacy and his influence on you. And it just, you can just trace it back through all the years of, of people that have had an influence on you back from the time you were a kid and how much of that influence came through the game of basketball and helped you to develop into the person that you are today.

And the same thing for me. And again, I think that to be able to pass that on through coaching and, and being able to have an impact on the kids that you coached at West and now what you’re going to be able to do at the Faden school. And I just think that there’s this through line with the game of people that influence you, and then now you’re going to go ahead and influence that next generation of players and next generation of people that you come in contact with.

And to me, really, that that’s what it’s all about. That’s what this podcast has kind of been built on. I don’t know that that’s what it was when we started, but that’s certainly what it’s become. It’s just a way for us to be able to sort of share, again, our passion for the game, but then also the passion of the guests that we have on and the people that are listening.

And right before we had you on, Greg, it’s funny, we had Jake Boyd, who he’s coaches at Eureka College in Illinois. So Division III, he was coaching freshman basketball and through a connection, he ended up getting an opportunity to coach At the collegiate level division three, he listens to the podcast and then he said, he sent me a text or an email.

I can’t even remember two, three months ago. He’s like, Hey, I have a friend who lives in Cleveland. I want to come out and work your camp. And came out from Illinois and worked a week of camp. And I told him after we interviewed after I interviewed him again tonight, I’m like, dude, like, I just can’t, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that this silly podcast led to me meeting you.

And then you come in and work in my camp that I’ve been doing for 32 odd years. It’s just, it’s incredible what the game of basketball does. It really is Greg. It’s amazing to me.

[00:46:26] Greg White: I don’t know. We say all the time, the ball has magic in it. You know, I said the coolest thing was meeting those kids and watching the kids at USA basketball.

So mutual friend, snowball guy Dave Bowinkel, I was like, Hey, I’m really studying Villanova, you know any chance you can connect me with coach Wright. And he goes, let me get, he goes, I’ll get back to you. All right. Well, let’s then weeks I’ve kind of forgot about it. Moved on. Dave didn’t forget.

Here’s coach Wright’s number. Oh, so I send a what, what any Duke would call a free roll. Text message to this number, no reply. Well, I wouldn’t reply either. You know, if I’m Jay Wright, I’m not answering this text message either. And so we’re there and then it’s been weeks go by. So we’re probably in the six, eight week window and all of a sudden my phone goes off and there’s, I have this contact saved as coach Jay Wright and I get the greatest basketball clinic through a text message I’ve ever received.

Well, I’m fan boy this time. I’m like, oh my god, I got to do it right and so I text back, thank you. Well, this goes on throughout our season, and we use a lot of his principles, which everybody does. Well, we’re going back and forth. Well I’d land in the Phoenix airport, and I’m walking through, I’m running to some art, some USA basketball guys.

I see a couple coaches that I know because we’re in town with the Final Four. Turn the corner, we’re like, hey, we’re going to wait over here because we have the shuttle to take us to the hotel. And so we’re waiting on some other coaches and players to arrive. As I’m standing there, I hear someone say, Coach Wright, you’re, and I turn and look and there’s Coach Jay Wright.

He’s in town with CBS for the final four. And so I walk over and, Hey, Coach Wright, Greg White thank you so much for the text and in his eyes, like, what, what are the chances we’re going to run into each other? And we get to have a conversation five minutes. And he goes, where are you here for?

And so I’m like, you’re going to say basketball. He goes, Hey, I’m going to be there tomorrow. I’m speaking to you guys. And so as he comes in the next day we get to see him and listen to him talk and it’s just like, you’re talking about the game, like it get out. That’s one of the reasons why guys like you, I try to do this.

I see what Tates did. So coach Showalter, like anytime I try not to say no to a basketball moment, if it’s a coach, it says coach, you got a couple minutes. Can you, can I text you or can I email you? What do you think about this? I try to, I want, I don’t, I always want to be that guy that’s like, you know what, a guy like Jay Wright gave me 20 minutes of text messaging.

He may have been driving to the airport, may have been doing whatever, but the fact that he would do that and the way Tates was and the way Bowinkel and our Snow Valley family has taught us all, like, I’m never going to say no to a basketball opportunity. And I try to share the game like it was shared with us.

Because with Tates gone and Jerry and those guys we’re the last of the cowboys. We’re the last guys sharing what’s been shared with us. And that’s what we’re here for, man. That’s why you started this, whether you know it or not. That’s why I get on here and ramble. That’s why when people reach out, if I have information, I will share it.

And if I don’t share it. I’m going to try to help them find it and get it to them as best as I can.  

[00:50:00] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s a great point. And I think that when you start talking about the willingness of the coaching profession to share and talk with one another, I mean, it’s truly incredible. When I think about all the people that have been willing to come on here and talk with me and talk with Jason and share with our audience. I mean, yeah, it’s just incredible. And so to your point, somebody reaches out to us or reaches out to me. I try to do whatever I can to help them in whatever small and meager way that I can. Cause it’s really what it’s all about.

[00:50:35] Greg White: Well, here’s the one thing I want to tell coaches too, though, and I’ve learned this, it’s not just going to be given to you and what I’m talking about with this. Mike is like. You, if you ask, if you put up, basically what I’m saying is that when these young coaches put out the effort, guys like me, like you, Names, but all these guys are going to help, but the guys that just want, Hey tell me, tell me what you know about a two, one a two, three zone, make an effort to reach out to that coach that knows about it.

Find the retired coach, find somebody, but they’re like the information’s out there, you can buy it, pay for it, whatever, but you’re going to get so much more when you put effort into going to get it like somebody, you If somebody spends time listening to this podcast and they tell me, Hey you and Mike were talking in a minute 54, you said this, or Mike said this, they put time in, I’m going to invest back into them.

But if they just call me and say, Hey, tell me what you and Mike talked about. No, man, you can pop in that podcast and listen, just like I do, just like everyone else does. And so that’s what I’m starting to see that more with young coaches I talk to is. They’re getting back into what, how we did about going to spend weeks at camp, going to clinics go, go visit campuses.

Go, just go. It’s not gonna fall on your lap. You’ve got to go put out that effort. You know, I’m watching, I’m watching my son Hayden right now with jobs and he’s talking to everybody. And it’s because you, it’s not just gonna fall on your lap. You know, we’ve conditioned kids to think it’s easy.

This job’s not easy. This, this game’s not easy. You got to go do things. So go, go put out the effort, watch the game, pay you back.

[00:52:20] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s so true. I mean, I think again, it’s not rocket science, right? I think you can apply this in lots of different realms, right? If you want to learn from somebody, then you got to reach out to them with the idea that, Hey, I’ve already put some time in learning about you or learning about what you know, or knowing what I want to get from you in terms of knowledge and what I’d like for you to share with me.

I think most times when. Somebody does that and puts that, that pre contact effort in for lack of a better way of saying it, that’s when you’re going to get a better response. I think that’s what you’re getting at. And I do think that when you see, it’s great to see like Snow Valley and the number of guys now that I talked to, like Jake was just there last week and said it was again, it was an incredible experience for him.

And it’s, that’s where you make those contacts. That’s where you get to know people. That’s where you put the time in that then you build up. And now you do have a network of guys that you can reach out to. And I think about, The network that you and I have built. And I think about the connection that I have with Alan Stein, who you talked about and how Alan helped me get this thing started and just the connections and coach Showalter and how good he’s been to me, both in letting me come and work at Snow Valley, but just contributing to the round tables that we do every month.

I mean, we’ve done 66 of them, Greg. He hasn’t missed one. And he’s, again, I have no right in any way, shape or form to even think that he would give me the time of day, let alone be a contributor to every single one of our round table episodes. I mean, it just speaks to, again, the kind of guy he is. And it also speaks to again, his ability and willingness to share with coaches who are out there who are listening and wanting the game to be better.

Like, he’s at a point, and I think that this is where we’re all striving to get to, right, is where, like, Coach Showalter doesn’t have anything more to prove. He’s not trying to show he’s this or he’s that or whatever. Like, he just wants the game to be better. And I think that. That’s really where I mean, I think that’s where I’m striving to try to get to is I just want the game to be better.

And how can I, how can I make that? How can I make that happen? If this podcast is in some small, teeny tiny way, helping the game to be better, then I’m at least leaving something behind. Because I can never repay. As I said earlier, I can never repay the game for what it’s given me.

[00:54:37] Greg White: Oh, absolutely. You know, and for Showalter’s generation, it was coach Wooden and I always tell him for our generation, it’s coach Showalter that everybody turns to is that guy that whether it’s NBA players, NBA coaches, may ask him next week or in two, just let me go through your phone.

I won’t call anybody, but I just want to see the numbers that he has. And I promise you, it’s a spectrum of basketball and it’s going to be worldwide. You know? It’s going to be worldwide. Like that was I was going you know, he, and we, I could do a whole hour on Showalter’s impact on me. If I hadn’t changed jobs, I was going to go overseas and, and do some things just off one phone call he made.

And you’re like, this guy is. He is Mr. Basketball, but yeah, no, we can do a whole hour on him, but we’ll save that one. We’ll save that for the next one.

[00:55:35] Mike Klinzing: We’ll save that for the next one. That sounds like a plan. All right, Greg, before we get out, share how people can get in touch with you and your social media, which I know you’re active there and just how people can get in touch with you and find out more about what you’re all about.

And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[00:55:50] Greg White: Do we call it Twitter still, or do we still call it Twitter?

[00:55:54] Mike Klinzing: I can’t call it X. I can’t, I gotta go Twitter.

[00:55:57] Greg White: Yeah, so it’s @GregWhite32, on Twitter X, whatever you want to call it. You’ll hit me there. That’s where I don’t put out as much as I used to.

But if you’ll reach out to me there. And then we’ll make sure my email and everything gets as long as posted on on the website with this episode. Or if you just send me a message, we’ll get something, get you set up there. And yeah, that’s all. If you got questions, want to talk about anything, want to come visit we’ve had coaches do this.

I don’t know what it’ll look like this year with our team, our facilities and stuff, but anybody wants to come to Northwest Arkansas, you’ve got us in the University of Arkansas. 19 high schools NAIA, JUCO, it’s division two all within an hour and a half. We have coaches come in and we can connect you with every level of basketball you want to see practice.

Coach Neighbors is the most open, sharing guy. Interested to see how Coach Calipari is with that. But yeah, we’ve got Arkansas Fort Smith, we’ve got Arkansas, we’ve got John Brown. I mean, we’ve got, there’s It’s a great place to be. Plus, there’s a great barbecue. Wright’s barbecue. Number one ranked barbecue in the nation.

Not mine. That was a real deal. So we’ll take care of you. Come in, talk ball, hang out, be great. So yeah, @GregWhite32 on Twitter. And we will get you connected with however we can.

[00:57:21] Mike Klinzing: Love it. All right, Greg, it’s good to have you back in the fold. Really appreciate your time tonight. Can’t thank you enough for that.

And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.