WHITEHALL – Matt Shepherd may be a first-year assistant coach at Whitehall, but he’s not exactly new to many of the players.

He coached five or six of them, along with his son Graycen, when they played travel basketball together in elementary and middle school.

Of course the kids eventually moved on to high school basketball, starting with the Whitehall JV or freshman squad.

Graycen Shepherd decided to step away from basketball in his freshman year to focus on football, and Matt Shepherd stepped away from coaching.

But a happy reunion was arranged last summer when Shepherd ran into Christian Subdon, who was about to become the new Whitehall boys varsity basketball coach.

Subdon invited him to be an assistant and Shepherd accepted, which wasn’t too surprising since Graycen was planning to get back into basketball and join the varsity this season.

That part changed when Graycen suffered an injury in preseason football practice, forcing him to miss the entire football and basketball season.

Subdon was wondering if his new assistant would still be on board after the injury, and was pleased with the response he received.

“I didn’t know how much he really wanted to coach again,” Subdon said. “I knew he was planning on his son being on the team, then he had that horrible injury, and I told him I understood if he changed his mind, but he said ‘What do you mean? I’m in.’

“He had to sit out a game earlier this season for quarantine stuff, and that really hurt him. That was the moment I realized this guy absolutely loves these kids. He’s been around them since they were little.”

Shepherd has had the time of his life returning to the coaching ranks and helping Whitehall overcome a slow start, post a 15-5 record, and win its second straight West Michigan Conference championship.

Coaching again has created an extra busy schedule for the local attorney, but he loves working with his former players and their teammates and is proud of the progress they’ve made.

“I guess I thought it would be fun, and I knew I missed that group of kids,” said Shepherd, who will be on the bench on Wednesday when Whitehall begins its quest for a district title with a semifinal game against Spring Lake. “Half of them are at my house every other weekend, anyway. I feel like I have custody of a couple of them! So it just seemed pretty natural to go back and do this.

“I appreciate the guys for letting me go on this ride with them. None of these guys realize that this is not normal at most schools. Not everyone gets to be a conference champion. This is a really good group, and I feel like a proud dad who gets to see them come of age and earn something special.”

A lifetime of hoops

Shepherd, the managing partner of Shepherd & Shepherd PC, has spent the better part of his life on a basketball court, or helping younger players develop their skills.

He played for longtime coach Mike Pumford at Newaygo High School back in the late 90s, became the all-time leading rebounder at the school, and earned All-State honors his senior season.

He went on to play at Muskegon Community College for former coach Gene Gifford, earned All-Conference honors and helped the Jayhawks win their first conference title in years.

He transferred out to the Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he set the single-season rebounding record that still stands.

“The best thing I did in college was rebound,” Shepherd said. “I was 6-foot-6 guarding guys who were 6-9, but rebounding is an effort thing, a want thing.”

After college Shepherd briefly considered turning pro and playing in Europe, but opted to go to law school and join the family business.

He stayed involved with basketball by serving as an assistant coach. He worked for several years under Gifford at MCC, moved on to help Keith Guy when the current Muskegon coach was at Muskegon Heights, then worked one season at Montague under Coach Dave Osborne.

By that point Shepherd had a wife and young children. and coaching had to take a back seat.

“My wife finally gave me an ultimatum – it was her or coaching,” Shephard said with a chuckle. “She’s much prettier than anybody I was coaching with, and we had three of our four kids by then.”

The Shepherd children (Graycen, 17; Sidney, 15, Lainey, 11, and Sam 9) are older now, so Shepherd got the green light to coach again this season. His youngest, Sam, joined his dad as the ball boy for the Whitehall varsity.

“Matt Shepherd has been instrumental in everything we’ve done,” said Subdon, who was the longtime JV coach at Whitehall before getting the varsity job this season. “I told him I needed somebody who was not going to be a yes man, and that’s definitely Matt. He will tell you when he thinks something is a bad idea. He’s been above and beyond what I would have ever imagined.”

Working with the bigs

Subdon, Shepherd and fellow assistant Marcelo Conklin (also the JV coach) are particularly proud of how the Vikings reinvented themselves and turned their season around after a tough 2-3 start.

“The word I would use is rewarding,” Shepherd said. “We had a decision to make over Christmas break. We had to develop an identity. We had been playing a zone defense, but we decided to be a tougher man-to-man team. We have a lot of football players, so that sort of went with how athletic the guys are. We also blended a lot of youth into the lineup, with two freshmen and a sophomore playing a lot, and we focused on playing tough defense.

“We had nothing to lose. We were 2-3, and the conference this year was very tough, but we got through it by doing the things we decided to do. We focused on being a defensive and relentless team.”

Shepherd has had a lot of fun working closely with the Vikings’ post players – senior Brody Fogus (6-foot-4), freshman Kal Kohler (6-3) and junior Maddox Varela (6-3).

Another freshman, standout Camden Thompson, also works out with the low post group, even though he’s a big guard. At 6-4, Thompson scores points from inside and outside, and snags a ton of rebounds.

As a standout “big” in high school and college, Shepherd knows how much having an effective inside game can do for a team.

“Two of our four bigs are freshmen, and those guys are not done growing,” Shepherd said. “We’re hoping to create a foundation of post players so we will be more versatile. The game now is all about shooting from the perimeter. Everyone wants to be Steph Curry. But with good post players we can create matchup problems for opponents.

“Post players are rare these days. You don’t see a lot of them, but it’s coming back.”

Shepherd is particularly excited about Thompson’s potential. It’s not every day that a team has a kid averaging around 18 points and 13 rebounds per game, with three years of varsity still ahead of him.

“The sky is the limit for that dude,” Shepherd said. “I make sure he knows the things that he needs to work on, and he wants to work. That will make a big difference for him.”

Subdon said Shepherd’s work with the post players has been a big plus.

“I can coach a big, but I can’t say I’ve done it,” Subdon said. “I played guard all my life, but Matt’s done it. He definitely pulls for the bigs and they listen. He gives them tangible things to work on and they do them, which is why they’ve gotten pretty good.”