Cross County Team

Head Coach

xcountry@destinhigh.org | 850-204-4044

As a student athlete at Choctawhatchee High School, Blake White played from the 2004 to 2008 seasons making playoff appearances each year. White had a 20-year basketball-playing career before retiring due to multiple injuries and taking up coaching full time. White graduated from Northwest Florida State College in 2011 and Southern New Hampshire University in 2015.

Coach White, who has over 16 years of coaching experience, began his high school coaching career as a student assistant at his alma mater, Choctawhatchee High School, in 2008 before moving up to assistant coach. In 2013, he was part of the Panhandle East-West All-Stars coaching staff. From 2014 to 2017, Coach White became the head coach at Pryor Middle School, where he took a losing program to back to back winning seasons and a playoff appearance in 2017. After his coaching stint in Pryor Middle School, Coach White was the varsity assistant coach at Pensacola Catholic High School, where he helped lead the Crusaders to a 28-2 record, District 1-5A Championship, and an FHSAA Final Four appearance in the 2017 to 2018 season. Recently, he spent three seasons on the Fort Walton Beach High School coaching staff, where he was an associate head coach and JV head coach from 2018 to 2021. There, he accumulated a record of 32-21 as the JV head coach, and produced three consecutive winning seasons.

Since the 2014 season, Coach White has owned and operated a successful travel basketball program, Gulf Coast Basketball Elite, accumulating 12 teams in 5 cities all across the panhandle of Florida, including a rising program out of Atlanta, GA. Teams of Gulf Coast Basketball Elite have won numerous tournaments and have been a staple in the community in their 8 years of operation. The successful run has led to White coaching 7 players currently at the collegiate level. On top of coaching, White is the play-by-play announcer for the men and women's basketball teams at Northwest Florida State College. White has also spent the last 3 years as a repeat summer camp coach at the University of West Florida and Northwest Florida State College.