New White Hall coach ready for role

Five years ago, new White Hall boys basketball coach Trey Lenox made his first coaching decision from the end of the Abilene Christian bench.

“Our starter had fouled out,” Lenox said. “Our coaches trusted me enough to put me back in the game, but there was a guy below me on the depth chart who had got in the game as well, and he was playing lights out. He was playing hard. He was making all the right plays, and he was just playing better than me at the time. … I was like, ‘Coach, you gotta put this kid in.'”

The player Lenox pushed his coaches to put into the game, Tobias Cameron, went on to collect the final two game-clinching rebounds in a 71-68 overtime win at Incarnate Word, which was the final game of ACU’s 2020 season and of Lenox’s basketball playing career.

White Hall announced Lenox as its new head coach on May 14.

This will be his first head coaching job after spending the five years since that final ACU game as an assistant coach at Hot Springs, his high school alma mater.

He said his interest in coaching began in high school, when he and his then-teammates had a chance to coach younger kids.

“My first year, I had a really good team,” Lenox said. “We basically beat everybody in our league. It was a chance to compete against my teammates while we were coaching and my chance to teach and pass down all the defenses and offenses that we were running at that time in high school, and I just got the itch for it then.”

Lenox was a four-time all-state selection at Hot Springs from 2012-16 and helped the Trojans win three straight Conference 5A South titles. His teams reached the state semifinals each of his final two years and finished Lenox’s senior year 28-4.

From there, Lenox left Arkansas to play Division I basketball at Abilene Christian from 2016-20. He appeared in 119 games for the Wildcats and made 12 starts.

He started eight games during his junior campaign, during which ACU won the Southland Conference Tournament and earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Lenox played 20 minutes in ACU’s loss to Kentucky in the first round.

Lenox returned to his hometown after college. Last year, he coached under former White Hall Coach Josh Hayes, and the two led Hot Springs to a 21-10 season.

Hayes said White Hall is getting a young, enthusiastic coach in Lenox.

“He brought different things to the table that maybe I hadn’t thought of or hadn’t done,” Hayes said. “When we had some ideas, it just worked out. I thought he brought good energy. He brought a passion and a true vision of the game.”

The Trojans’ 13-3 conference record saw them finish second in 5A South behind eventual state champion Benton.

Hot Springs defeated Valley View 61-53 in the first round of the state tournament before falling to eventual state runner-up and 5A Central champion Maumelle.

Now, Lenox gets his shot at being a head coach.

He inherits a White Hall team which finished 15-14 overall and 8-8 in conference after a promising 4-1 start to 5A South play.

Lenox said when he first returned to Hot Springs from ACU, he tried coaching the Trojans like college players.

Since then, he said he has learned how to better coach high school kids.

“I learned that these kids just want somebody who’s going to be hard on them, but you have to show that you care about them, as well,” Lenox said. “Once I showed that I did care and that I did understand what some of them are going through or that I just took the time to even want to talk to them about something other than basketball, I feel like that’s what helped me build better relationships with my players.”

Lenox is wrapping up his final school year at Hot Springs, which ends June 10 thanks to the district’s year-round schedule. He hasn’t met all of White Hall’s players yet, but he said he was impressed by the six or seven he has met so far.

Those players are still dealing with the loss of their previous head coach, Matt Williams, who died in a car accident in April. Lenox said one of the first things he did with each of the players he met was ask how they were doing since Williams’ death.

“I don’t want it to be something to where I overshadow Coach Williams,” Lenox said. “I still want them to hold on to his memory. Heck, if anything, push past all of this trial and tribulation for him. Show him that you did learn how you can get through this. … I can only imagine as a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old what that’s like, losing somebody that you spend so much time with, somebody that you trust and somebody that you get to go to battle with every single day.”

Lenox’s move from Hot Springs to White Hall may add some additional intrigue to this season’s matchups between the Trojans and Bulldogs when combined with Hayes’ move in the opposite direction a year ago.

Both games last year, which featured Hayes and his son, Jai’Chaunn, competing against their former team for the first time, went down to the wire and were settled by single digits.

Jai’Chaunn was a senior and won’t be a part of those games this coming season, but Hayes said Lenox moving to White Hall may help grow a rivalry between the two schools.

“I didn’t think the White Hall-Hot Springs matchup could get any more rivalristic or any better,” Hayes said. “We had two barnburners last year, but I think that rivalry will be restored now.”