Coach White’s AD Contributions Leave Impact on BC

Bluefield College’s Mike White, head coach and director of athletics (AD), will soon be stepping down from his role as AD, but his time as athletic director will have a lasting impact on the department for years to come. 

Coach White has served as head coach for baseball at Bluefield College since 2005. In 2015, he added athletics director to his duties. He’ll be giving up the AD responsibilities, but not his coaching role, at the end of this academic year.

Under Coach White’s leadership, two new sports – men’s wrestling and co-ed competitive cheer – have been added to the school’s intercollegiate athletics program since he began his tenure as AD. And as the number of student-athletes has increased so has overall student enrollment at Bluefield College. In 2017, BC enrolled 997 students, and in 2018 the school enrolled 1,158 students. 

In addition, with Coach White as AD several BC sports programs have received national recognition from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA), both from a team and individual standpoint. Perhaps none is more important or impressive than the Silver status recognition within the NAIA’s Champions of Character program – a first for Bluefield College. The Champions of Character program recognizes NAIA member schools whose student-athletes excel in integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship, and servant leadership. For Coach White, it’s all about helping others and being a servant leader.

“My most proud accomplishment, whether it be as an athletic director or coach, is helping student athletes in the classroom or in their chosen sport,” Coach White said. BC sports information director Bob Redd agrees.

“I believe he (Coach White) would say his biggest accomplishment is helping develop student leaders,” Redd said, “and developing players into men.” 

While AD, Coach White also developed the idea and helped launch a new broadcast service for Rams athletics that provides web broadcasts of all of home and most away games. Redd said Coach White was “instrumental” in implementing the broadcast program.

Coach White has also helped expand the Athletics Department with more workers for efficiency. Redd said he used to manage SID duties by himself for games, but now he has a team that helps him.

“Just in my department, I went from having just myself to having an assistant and a group of students that work with me every game and throughout the year to get sports information out,” Redd said.

Focusing just on baseball now, Coach White will enter his 14th season as head coach of the Rams this spring – the school’s longest tenured coach on staff. 

“I appreciate Dr. (David) Olive (president of BC) and Dr. (Marshall) Flowers (vice president for academic affairs) having the confidence in me to serve in the (AD) role during this time,” Coach White said. “It has afforded me the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. The Athletic Department at BC is in a great place, and I look forward to continuing to serve the college as its head Baseball Coach. Go Rams!”