Mark White enters his 25th season as the head coach of the Dominican University men's basketball program and 32nd overall in college coaching. White guided the Stars to the program's first back-to-back winning seasons in 2008 since the 1992-93 campaign as the Stars posted a 17-10 record in 2006-2007 and 14-12 mark in 2007-2008. In fact, White's Stars posted double-digit win totals in five consecutive seasons (2005-2010) for the first time since joining the NCAA Division III ranks in 2000.
Most recently, White guided the Stars to a 11-14 record, an eight-win improvement from the previous season which was tied for the 12th most improved mark in Division III. Prior to that, the 2016-2017 season saw the Stars finish with a 12-14 record, a seven-win improvement from year prior while qualifying for the NACC tournament.
In 2010, White's Stars grabbed the final spot in the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) Men's Basketball Tournament and then became the first eight-seed in conference history to upset a one-seed with an 88-76 win over the Concordia Wisconsin Falcons on the road. The Stars went on to play for the NAC Tournament Championship that season, after topping Concordia Chicago 82-79 in the semifinals before ultimately falling to Aurora in the championship game.Â
At the start of the 2007-2008 academic year, White was selected by the Dominican University Diversity Committee as the recipient of the 2007 Sr. Clemente Davlin, OP Diversity Leadership Award for his commitment to diversity on Dominican's campus.
White's Stars were just one of 16 Division III men's basketball programs to improve their record every season over a four-year span from 2003-2007. Dominican went from a four-win season in 2003-2004 to a seven-win season in 2004-2005. After registering 13 wins in 2005-2006, the Stars finished the stretch with 17 victories in the 2006-2007 season. During that 2006-2007 season, the Stars played in an NCAA Division III record four-straight overtime games while playing a total of six overtime contests on the season.
After serving as the university's head men's basketball coach from 1995-2000 as the university transitioned from NAIA to NCAA, White returned to Dominican University in 2002. Since his return, White has shaped the team into a conference contender, hosting first-round NAC Tournament games in 2007 and 2008 as the Stars finished in the top four in the conference in back-to-back years for the first time since 2000.
White has established a tradition of recruiting, coaching and developing post players. In his tenure with the Stars, White has recruited and coached six post players that have received postseason honors ranging from all-conference honorable mention to all-region. Mike Haiduc was a three-time all-conference selection, earning All-Conference honors in the Lake Michigan Conference in 2006 and back-to-back All-Conference honors from the NAC in 2007 and 2008 before playing professional basketball in Denmark and Romania.
In addition to his coaching experience with Dominican, White spent seven seasons at NCAA Division I Northeastern Illinois as an assistant coach.Â
A 1984 graduate of Macalester College, a NCAA Division III institution in Minnesota, White received a bachelors degree in economics before earning a master's degree in sports administration from the University of Illinois-Chicago.
In addition to his duties as the Head Basketball Coach, White also serves as the Associate Director of Athletics, responsible for the coordination of the department of athletics compliance program and he previously served as the head men’s golf coach from 2012-2018 before taking the reigns of the program again in 2022.
