August 6, 2015 (Jackson, Miss.) - Former Belhaven Women's Basketball coach Gwen White was inducted into the 2015 class of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame earlier tonight. The Belhaven Hall of Fame member was one of six inductees in this year's class that was honored in front of a record crowd.
A true pioneer of women's sports in Mississippi as an athlete and then a coach, White coached at Belhaven from the first collegiate season in 1974-75 through the 1983-84 season, compiling a 174-152 record. White coached the Blazers to three 20+ win seasons and six winning records in her 10 years.
At the time, Belhaven College women's basketball competed against schools of various sizes all over the state of Mississippi and White led the women's basketball team to the small college state championship in 1982. White also coached Belhaven against major college programs like Louisiana State, Kentucky and Ohio State. White's team picked up a 74-56 victory over Kentucky, on December 17, 1976.
“Coach Gwen White is a pioneer for women's athletics in our state,” said Belhaven Vice President for Athletics Scott Little. “She excelled as both an athlete and a coach, and has faithfully impacted the lives of countless students over her years of coaching.”
White was inducted into the Belhaven University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998. She finished her career with 174 wins as the coach of the Green and Gold, most of any coach in school history. She also has the highest win percentage in school history, finishing with a .534 win percentage.
She also coached at the high school ranks in the Jackson area. She coached high school teams to state championships in three different sports, started girls AAU track and basketball in Mississippi, coached a Mississippi team to an AAU national basketball championship and won 79 percent of her games as a high school basketball coach.
White retired from coaching after 51 years in 2012. Her Northwest Rankin tennis teams achieved a record of 325 victories and 26 defeats for an astounding winning percentage of nearly 93 percent.
She coached high school teams to state championships in the sports of basketball, tennis and softball and was an all-star coach in all three sports.
As an athlete, she scored more than 3,000 points as a player at Clinton High School and was a member of the state championship track team. She was the junior college state champion in tennis at Hinds Community College. In 1993, Hinds selected her into its Hall of Fame.
White started the first girls basketball camp in Mississippi. She was also the first female in the Mississippi Association of Coaches and is a member of that group's Hall of Fame.
White joins an elite list in the 2015 class, including; Mike Dennis, star running back for Ole Miss who also spent time in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams, Steve Knight of William Carey University, who is all-time winningest college basketball coach in the state, Fred McAfee, a speedy running back for Mississippi College, who played for the New Orleans Saints, Clarence Weatherspoon, a basketball star at the University of Southern Mississippi who later played for the Philadelphia 76ers, and Brett Favre, an all-time great quarterback for the University of Southern Mississippi and a 20-year veteran of the NFL playing for the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers, New-York Jets and Minnesota Vikings.