The Buchtel High School boys basketball coaching position is officially open, but longtime Griffins coach Stephen White is not ready to just step away quietly.
“Right now the coaching position is in my union’s hands,” White said on Sunday. “We are going to fight to get the position back, and if we get it back then I will make a decision if I want to go back to Buchtel or not.
“I feel like ever since my wife [Marguerite] had passed three years ago that the school never treated me kindly. I felt that there were some things going on behind closed doors that I didn’t know about. I kind of had a feeling that he [Buchtel Principal Byron Hopkins] didn’t want me there anymore.”
Joe Vassalotti, the Akron Public Schools athletic director, said last week that principals can decide whether to renew coaches’ contracts.
White, a social studies teacher in the career-based intervention program at Buchtel, said Hopkins told him in a recent meeting “that they were going in a new direction.”
“I didn’t question it,” White said. “I just told him thank you and I left. I wasn’t shocked. I kind of had this feeling all year. They [the principals] didn’t come to our games, so I was wondering if you don’t come to the games than how do you know what is going on with the program.”
White, 49, won his 300th game as a boys basketball coach in January and guided Buchtel to an 18-6 record. The Griffins were City Series runner-up to Ellet this past season and were a Division II district semifinalist before losing to Kenmore.
White ended the season with a career record of 310-122 in 19 seasons as a head coach.
Buchtel split with Ellet in the regular season, swept Kenmore, Firestone, East and North, and split with Garfield because of a forfeit due to the use of an ineligible player.
“We beat Ashland at home, our Senior Night we beat Cleveland Martin Luther King at home, and won all of our nonleague games except for the games with Stow and St. Vincent-St. Mary,” White said. “We won at Tallmadge in the regular season, and then beat Northwest and Tallmadge in tournament before losing to Kenmore.”
White completed his 14th season (2003-2017) as Buchtel’s coach in March. He was the boys basketball coach at East for five seasons from 1998-2003, and was previously an assistant from 1988-1998 at Coventry, Central-Hower, North and Buchtel.
White graduated from St. Vincent-St. Mary in 1985 and then earned degrees from Cuyahoga Community College, Kent State University and the University of Akron.
White led Buchtel to the City Series title game in each of the past five seasons, beating Ellet in 2014, losing to Firestone in 2013 and 2016 and losing to Ellet in 2015 and 2017.
“In the past 14 years, we only missed the [City Series] championship game twice, and we have made the district final or semifinal every year but one time,” White said.
“I want to find out why I was let go and what is going on. I want to coach again, but I don’t know if I want to get back into it immediately. If I happen to not win this, than I might need to take some time off and spend more time with my son [Aaron] and my daughter [Stephanie]. She is going off to school soon, and this is her senior year [at Firestone]. Without her mom, that is kind of tough.”
Stephanie White was a starter on Firestone’s volleyball team that won the City Series title in October. Aaron White is a fifth-grader at Akron First Assembly who plays soccer.
A diamond split
• Firestone and host Canton McKinley split a baseball doubleheader on Saturday. Jacob Weber pitched a two-hit shutout to lead the Falcons to a 2-0 win in the first game, and Grant Lisk had two hits to guide the Bulldogs to a 9-3 victory in the second game.
Michael Beaven can be reached at 330-996-3829 or mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the #ABJVarsity high school blog at www.ohio.com/preps. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MBeavenABJ.