Former long-time Detroit King basketball coach Benny White was on the sidelines over the weekend watching the King football team win a state title. This season he will return to the sidelines on the basketball court at Birmingham Groves to be their head coach.
White, 64, took a year off last season to be a family man and to watch his son, B. Artis White, play basketball for the Canton Chiefs. The 6-foot-1 point guard is committed to Western Michigan.
“I never did think I would not get back into coaching,” White told Hometownlife.com. “But I had the chance to be a husband and a dad last year, as we have a 17-year-old son that I was able to be a part of his basketball and watching his AAU games and high school games for the first time.”
White has an impressive coaching resume dating back to the 1970s, serving in a number of different capacities, at a number of different institutions. He started as a graduate assistant at Michigan State University (1976-77), then went to Wayne State University as a part-time assistant (1977-78), the University of Detroit as a graduate assistant (1978-79), Albion College as an assistant (1986-89), San Jose State University as an assistant (1989-91), then back to Detroit Mercy, where he served as an assistant under Perry Watson (1993-95).
His first high school coaching job and head coaching job at any level was at King in 1995-2010. In 15 years, White compiled a 201-89 record, while coaching a number of Division I recruits including James Theus, Mike Helms, Chuck Bailey, Ramar Smith, Flenard Whitfield, and Tracy Smith, among others. The Crusaders won a Detroit Public School League city title under White in 1999.
After leaving King, White coached at Eastern Michigan University for six years as an assistant. He was part of the EMU teams that won the Mid-American Conference West Division championship in 2012 and qualified for postseason play in both the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
White was inducted into the Detroit Public Schools Coaches Hall of Fame in 2007. He played his high school basketball at Detroit Northern in 1972 where he was 2nd-team All-PSL performer.
In college he went on to play at MSU under Jud Heathcote. White was named MSU’s Most Improved Player in 1973 and led the Spartans in assists while serving as a co-captain for the 1975-76 season.
Groves is getting an experienced basketball mind and proven winner as a coach and player. White is well-known around the area and region among the basketball community and is slam dunk hire for the Falcons. Groves went 9-11 and lost to Farmington in the district finals.
“I stayed around the game and I knew, sooner or later, I’d get back into coaching,” said White. “The timing came for me to be over at Birmingham Groves. I will enjoy being around the young men again and I will enjoy being on the floor again and teaching the game, so it all works out.”
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