Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Will White spent his Thursday at school, calling players and laying the groundwork for next season. Never mind it's only mid June.
The new Boca Ciega girls basketball coach knows he has one huge hole to fill on the court, among other duties.
White, a three-year assistant under retired Bogie boys basketball coach Randy Shuman, was officially named girls coach Monday, replacing Nate Southern.
"I'm ready to go. I just wish practice started tomorrow," White said.
Not quite, but when it does, White will take on one of the county's tougher rebuilding jobs, helping the Pirates replace scoring machine Kelcey Roegiers-Jensen. The perennial first-team all-county guard graduated and will attend Georgia State in the fall.
White, 29, brings building experience to the table. In his most recent head job, a one-year stint in 1998-99 at Lakeland McKeel Academy, he took a team that won three games the previous season and finished 13-14.
For two years prior to that, White coached at Lockwood (Mo.) High, hired straight out of Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Mo. Upon moving to Florida four years ago, he first spent a year as a basketball referee in Pinellas before joining Randy Shuman's staff.
"I was blessed. That's something I was looking for, to be an assistant with an established program," White said. "I wanted to learn not so much the X's and O's, but how to run a program.
"His intensity and his dedication to practice is something I'll take away."
White teaches world history and sociology at Bogie and was voted teacher of the year by the student body.
Southern, who went 55-27 in three years at Bogie with three Pinellas County Athletic Conference south county titles and three district runner-up finishes, said leaving the program was a "mutual" decision between him and since-retired principal Barbara Paonessa.
"I had a good experience there, though we didn't go as far (in the postseason) as we would have liked," Southern said. "I had talked with my family about not coming back, and things fell into place."
Southern will remain at the school and continue helping coach the school's track and flag football teams.