White Hall's Josh Hayes Takes No Prisoners on the Court
But this season was different. He was fueled by the loss of his father.
Yep, he has tattoos. Twenty-five to be exact. That’s right. 25. His favorite is his R.I.P. Mackey, dedicated to his best friend who died during Hayes’ senior of college.
He knows his music. He listens to rap – J. Cole, Ghostface, Jay-Z and Larry June, to be specific – and old school R&B – Earth, Wind & Fire. He throws in some John Legend, Musiq Soulchild and Alicia Keyes, for good measure.
He’s energetic on the court, never sitting down, firing up the fans and challenging calls.
And he knows 21st century kids.
He should.
Hayes has two sons who play basketball.
His oldest, Jai’Chaunn (Jai), is a sophomore at White Hall High School where he has already accumulated D-1 offers including Vanderbilt, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, University of Missouri and the University of Mississippi. Jai is three-point master. Hayes’ other son, Vance, aka Van Van, is a seventh grader at White Hall Middle School. He plays basketball, too. So watch out.
Hayes is also a role model for African-American players and coaches.
He broke through cultural barriers in southeast Arkansas to become the first African-American head coach of any sport at White Hall High School. That hasn’t been easy, he confessed.
“It has been the biggest challenge of my life,” he said. “An uphill battle, often misunderstood, however, it’s been rewarding all at the same time.”
Hayes’ Bulldogs didn’t make it to the 5A basketball tournament in Hot Springs last week but do not count them out next season. At all.
Hayes is proud of all his team’s accomplishments this season and the previous two he coached at White Hall.
The Bulldogs made history when they played in the 2021 King Cotton tournament, the first time a White Hall team had ever been invited to the historic event. They returned this past December. That appearance made school history, too, when the team won its first-ever King Cotton game against the Grissom Tigers of Huntsville, Ala., 65-64.
I interviewed Hayes after that one-point win at the Pine Bluff tournament. He told me that he had dedicated the season to his dad, who died last Father’s Day. I wanted to deep-dive into this so I recently asked Hayes for an interview.
We met in his office where a sign on the bulletin board says: Get Your Mind Right #1 “Just because I don’t feel good when someone else gives their opinion…doesn’t mean that I’m right” ~ Scott Savor, owner Secrets in Sports
David Hayes, Humanitarian
“My dad was everything to me,” Hayes told me, tearing up. “I lost my best friend my senior year in college so that prepared me, but I’m still grieving and it’s hard as hell. Jai was close to my father and we dedicated the season to Paw Paw.”
His dad, David Hayes, was a great leader, Hayes said. He worked as a manager for the Department of Work Services. He helped immigrants acquire green cards and navigate the complicated system of unemployment and social security.
“He was a humanitarian,” Hayes said. “I wanted to be like him. He gave me advice and taught me to be a man. I’m just like my father. His passing was so sudden, and it was painful, and it hurt. It really showed me what direction I needed to be in and how tough I really was.”
If you watched the Bulldogs, you saw a toughness and an aggressiveness built by grief that fueled every game.
The Bulldogs closed the season 17-13. They lost a chance to play in the 5A regional tournament to the Lake Hamilton Wolves, a team that lost the state championship last week to the Pine Bluff Zebras.
Regardless of the Bulldogs’ record, the team experienced a winning season, a resurrection, Hayes said.
Hayes became coach in the spring of 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. His team has steadily improved even beating Grant County rival, the Sheridan Yellowjackets, this year by two points on the Yellowjacket court.
Compare that to Hayes’ first season with the Bulldogs – 5-19 – and last year, 8-18.
The Past and the Future
Previously at Little Rock’s eStem, a charter school, Hayes led the school to a 25-14 record in 2019, an achievement since eStem isn’t exactly known for its sports. The eStem Mets finished 12-23 this season.
“It was different,” Hayes said. “It was my first opportunity to be a head coach and it was in Little Rock. I was a career coach program manager at Hall. I wanted a career change, and it provided that. It was good for the most part. I was able to build a program that was competitive without a gym.
Hayes said every Mets game was at a neutral site because the team didn’t practice where they played. eStem has no athletic budget so the team hosted fundraisers. The school had no buses for travel. Hayes drove the team. The school didn’t even have a place to store balls.
“Basketballs were in my truck daily,” he said. “I basically had to win without much help. I won 20 games in five years, only coach to take them to state and we won two games and lost in the semi-finals. I’m the all-time winningest coach there, 100-70.”
If Hayes can do that, he will get a team to a state championship. His career, so far, screams such an achievement is on the horizon.
A graduate of Parkview High School in Little Rock, Hayes played for Ole Miss before transferring to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway where he graduated. He coached at Hall High School and eStem, but he is also a well-known figure in youth basketball especially with his Skills and Drills Training and Sunday Session Leagues program.
Either from school coaching or youth leagues, Hayes has trained some well-known players – Moses Moody, Bobby Portis, Bryson Warren, Cam Wallace. With Portis, Hayes was his position coach and trainer.
The list goes on and on.
But regardless of where or who Hayes has coached or trained previously, coaching his son, Jai, on the high school level has been a highlight of his life. Hayes gave up a dream job, college coaching, in North Carolina for his sons.
“It was a sacrifice, but I gave it up to have a relationship with my sons and to be in their lives,” he said.
Hayes has two more years coaching Jai then Vance arrives on the high school scene.
“It’s pure bliss every day,” Hayes said. “It’s a dream to coach my sons, the best feeling, and watch them develop and their progress.”
But while he’s a father, he’s also a coach. He tells his son and his players this: “I tell the haters ‘Thank you, they’re our motivation’ and it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish so head up and chest out!”
