Hard work paying off

No. 12 Lions making first trip to NJCAA national tourney

By Jamie Wachter / Sports Editor CNHI

MERIDIAN —     In guiding East Mississippi Community College to its first NJCAA men’s national tournament appearance, coach Mark White turned to the one attribute he preaches most to his Lions: Hard work.

    When White, a former Mississippi State assistant, took over the Lions program three years ago, there wasn’t much to build on as his first Lions squad featured 13 freshmen and a pair of transfers. The road from that new-look Lions squad to the program that opens national tournament play Tuesday against Brunswick (N.C.) Community College at 2 p.m. with the winner advancing to an 8 p.m. Wednesday game in the winner’s bracket while the loser plays at 10 a.m. Thursday in an elimination game, came about through some old-fashioned hard work on the recruiting trail.

    That is an aspect White not only enjoys, but one his assistant Jeremy Shulman excels at.

    “We knew it was a difficult job, but also knew if we got out and worked very hard we could recruit the players to be successful,” White said. “I’ve been very blessed to have such a tremendous assistant that has AAU experience and connections. In my opinion, he’s the best assistant in the country. He loves recruiting, he lives off it. I also take a lot of pride myself in getting out and talking to kids and parents and recruiting. We preach that we’re never going to let anyone outworks us. We tell that to our kids, and it starts with us on the recruiting trail.

    “When we got here, we didn’t look at the past. We just knew that if we worked hard enough we could get players in here and we’ve been blessed there. There’s challenges in that Scooba is a small town and in an isolated area, but a good friend once told me, ‘If you’ve got a scholarship for them, a place to feed them, a place to house them and place for them to play, you can get players.’”

    Once that hard work recruiting nets those players, White’s next batch of hard work begins — this time in the practice gym. In getting the Lions to improve as a team, White has stressed individual improvement. Those strides come from strenuous workouts.

    “It’s all about building a program, not a team,” he said. “Our program is built on two things. No. 1 — work ethic. We’re not going to be outworked. No. 2 — Discipline, on and off the court. That means going to class, going to study hall and getting in and working in the weight room and the gym.

    “My philosophy is that if each kid improves as an individual, the team has to improve because it’s made up of those players. So we really stress that through individual instruction and individual workouts.”

    They seem to pay off, too. EMCC has gone from a fifth-place finish in the MACJC North Division his first year to 17-11 overall last year and a tie for second place in the North at 8-4 to the school’s first division title and national ranking this year.

    That improvement has also led to the Lions marking off two of the possible three goals — win the MACJC North, win the state tournament (fell one win shy) and win the Region 23 crown to earn a national bid — they set before the season. The fourth and final goal: Winning a national championship. That road begins Tuesday, but the Lions will try and get there the same way they got to this point — hard work and competing.

    “That’s what we’re competing for,” White said. “It’s going to be hard. There are 15 great teams besides us there. But that is our goal.”

    And you can believe the Lions are working hard to reach it.

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