Auburn Mountainview hoops coach to moonlight at Pierce College
Published 3:38 pm Wednesday, March 18, 2026
It’s going to be quite the chaotic basketball season for Auburn Mountainview boys basketball head coach Kendall White as he embarks on a new venture while continuing to lead the Lions.
White announced via his personal social media on March 13 that he is going to be an assistant coach at Pierce College, while keeping his position at Auburn Mountainview. The caption underneath his post is pretty accurate, and hard to prove wrong: “Idk if it’s been done before, but we doing it,” White posted on Instagram.
Basketball will consume a lot of White’s mind over the next 12 months, as he will be on the bench at Pierce College games while also leading Auburn Mountainview after taking the Lions to the Tacoma Dome this past season for the first time in school history.
White has gotten approval from Pierce head basketball coach Brian Kovacevich as well as athletic directors Chris Carr (Auburn Mountainview) and Duncan Stevenson (Pierce College).
“Auburn Mountainview is the priority. Before I accepted it, I made sure to talk to the AD here (Auburn Mountainview) and made sure everything would be good to go and made sure he understood I am definitely where my feet are. I am putting our boys first,” White said.
His schedule will be jam-packed with just possibly August as the only free month in his calendar.
“It’s what I like to do. To everyone else, they have hobbies and stuff they like to go do. To me it’s just basketball. I’m blessed to get paid to do things that I love. For me it is just like anyone else’s hobby, I just now get to do it in multiple places,” White said.
But his commitment and main focus is with Auburn Mountainview. Should conflict arise, which was uncommon last year as the two teams played on the same day just three times, he will prioritize his high schoolers over the college players, and both parties are aware of that.
“We’ve worked it out where I will be at Pierce as much as I can, but they understand my situation. I am kind of getting my foot in the door, helping a program and continuing doing my piece here in the Auburn community,” White said. “I am blessed to be joining a staff where they understand my heart is in this building, that is where my priority is. If there is ever a conflict, I know where I need to be at.”
White didn’t know when he took over Auburn Mountainview and dove head first into coaching that college was going to be his goal. But now that he has felt what it takes to lead a program, the former Kentwood Conks player is prepping for the future.
“Timing-wise it is going to be a struggle, but the only thing that is going to hurt most is my gas tank,” White said.
Former assistant Keith Green was on White’s staff when he started at Auburn Mountainview. Green was at Green River College as an assistant with the women, but this year went to Pierce to coach the men.
An obvious link between White and Pierce would be that he puts his players on an inside lane to play at the college level. Seeing the recruiting process from the outside during AAU ball and having current and former players recruited, White wants no part of that aspect of college basketball.
“I don’t really want to be involved in the recruiting piece, I hate the recruiting part of the basketball game. For me, if a kid wants to play at a school and feel connected, they should play at that school. I have been trying to instruct my AMV boys to do that, go where you think you’ll have a relationship with some folks. I think in some cases that will naturally happen, but that is not under my assistant coach duty umbrella,” White said.
White will just miss former Lions player Mande Wanlemvo at Pierce, who just played his sophomore year. But another Auburn Mountainview alum, Lucas McClendon, will be there for his sophomore year next season when White arrives.
