Basketball: BBL needs to build on White's legacy

The name of Joe White means little to the majority of Americans who will dominate this weekend's fixtures in the British Basketball League Championship, but the hundreds of mourners who crammed into east London's St John of Jerusalem Church for his funeral on Thursday will be wondering when the next champion of English basketball will emerge.

White, who won four England caps and played for Crystal Palace, Portsmouth and London Towers, died of cancer last week before reaching his forties having spent the last decade nurturing and developing a stream of schools, junior and senior players.

White and Tony Garbelotto, now coach at Birmingham Bullets, developed the Towers programme in the early Nineties that won 18 national titles at all age groups from under-13 to under-23.

White, who continued coaching National Basketball League club Hackney until illness overtook him, turned his skills to schools coaching and his Homerton House School teams won another 11 national titles from under-14 to under-16 levels.

Garbelotto said of his friend's funeral: "There were over 1,500 there and I doubt we will ever see so many people in one place again who love basketball as much as Joe did. He left a legacy which has to be fulfilled."

White, though, drew little comfort from the BBL. No Englishman appears in the top 20 for scoring, steals, assists or shooting percentage and only one, Birmingham's Martin Henlan, is in the top 20 for rebounding. For White, the BBL may as well have been another country – America.

It is Americans who will boost their stats when Thames Valley, second in the table, face the leaders, Sheffield, at Bracknell tonight. Tigers' coach, Paul James, like White a former England international, needs his team to end a run of four defeats in recent meetings to close the gap.