Back on April 17th, Bob Dunn, Shelby Zoeckler, and Carolyn Wochele headed down to the Cincinnati area for one of the numerous AAU showcases that dominate the schedules of college basketball coaches during the spring and summer.
If the trio felt a little lost, even on an extremely familiar route down I-71 – Cincy is a staple of the recruiting circuits, and Cleveland State plays a conference game at Northern Kentucky every year, of course – they could hardly be blamed.
After all, Dunn had officially been hired to coach the Vikings less than one week earlier, and was only two days removed from his introductory press conference. He quickly retained Zoeckler and Wochele from Chris Kielsmeier’s final coaching staff, but had very little else to rely on at that point. Thirteen of CSU’s 14 players from the 2025-26 season had either exhausted their college eligibility or entered the transfer portal, and time was of paramount importance when it came to restocking both the roster and the staff.
The infamous “Hell Is Real” sign that the Cleveland Staters passed just south of Columbus undoubtedly seemed a little on the nose.
Nevertheless, with the cool resolve that defines high-level coaches in pressure situations, the group used their 4.5 hours of windshield time efficiently, by tossing around names of candidates to fill out what would eventually become an on-court staff of seven.
“It was only me and Shelby and Carolyn on the job then,” Dunn recalled. “And we’re driving down to Cincinnati for AAU and just talking, brainstorming some people that’d be good for the staff.”
At one point, Zoeckler jumped in with an idea: “What about Mariah White?”
Indeed, what about Mariah White? Between 2017 and 2021 the guard from Toledo enjoyed one of the best playing careers in Vikings history. The two-time Horizon League defender of the year also scored 1,320 points on the opposite end of the floor, and ended her time in green and white as the MVP of the 2021 Women’s Basketball Invitational, which produced CSU’s first-ever postseason tournament title.
White moved on to Missouri State at that point, and spent a graduate transfer season helping the Bears to an NCAA Tournament bid. She then served as Virginia’s Director of Recruiting Operations for two years.
A slam-dunk hire? Well, maybe. There was a little bit of a catch.
White left UVA after the 2023-24 season and began to plant the seeds of a career in higher education away from athletics. She was an academic advisor at VCU, working primarily with pre-health students in their freshman and sophomore years. Most recently, a year at Bowling Green involved working in the alumni office, and helping with programming for recent graduates.
“I’ve always known I wanted to be a leader in higher ed,” she said.
Between those rewarding experiences, the Master of Science in Education that she picked up at Missouri State, and a growing knowledge of university operations across different departments, White seemed ready to reduce basketball to something she did outside of her primary career.
“I thought maybe I’d do some training on the side,” she remembered thinking. “Or maybe I’d do like some high school coaching.”
Suddenly, on that seemingly-random April weekend, White’s phone lit up with an unexpected call that altered her life’s course. Zoeckler, an old friend who had been with Cleveland State’s program since White’s freshman year, had been charged with following up on her road trip idea and feeling out whether White would be open to joining her on the Vikings’ staff.
That conversation couldn’t have gone much better. Even though she spent time at four other schools after earning her bachelor’s degree, White has maintained close contact with CSU as a regular participant in the program’s alumnae weekends and other events.
“I came to Cleveland State when I was 18, and when you’re in that moment, you think you are grown and you know everything, but obviously when you’re 18, or even 22 years old, you grow and you learn so much during those years,” she explained. “I have grown so much at Cleveland State, and it has given me so much, this university, this city. So I’m forever grateful for those years and it has grown me into who I am today.”
“So you know what? This would be the place that I would consider getting back into coaching. Maybe this is all aligning for a reason, so let me walk through this door.”
A couple days later, Dunn followed up to confirm that everything would work.
“It seemed like a really good fit for where she’s at in her career, what she was looking to get back involved in, and her passions,” he said. “Having an alum on staff was extremely important to me, [let alone] one who competed at such a high level.”
Within a couple weeks, White was set to join Zoeckler, Dunn and Wochele on those recruiting excursions. Then, as summer workouts began in June, she was once again prowling the Wolstein Center practice gym, though now in a tracksuit instead of her old number 14 uniform.
Even fellow alumna Destiny Leo has been around to work out with the team and drive the full-circle nature of that reality home in a particularly heavy-handed fashion. Leo, of course, was a rookie on that Women’s Basketball Invitational title team during White’s final year at Cleveland State.
“She calls me her mom, I call her my daughter,” White related. “Obviously we’re both like adults and experiencing different things in our lives, but it’s still like that. At the end of day, you’re my sister, so it’s not weird at all. Now I’m like, ‘Okay, where were you in practice today? I didn’t see you. Let’s go a little harder.’ Now I can take a little coach approach.”
That sort of enthusiasm has been a welcome addition to the Vikings’ leadership, and an effective counterpoint to the quieter styles of some of the other coaches.
“I love her,” gushed incoming transfer guard Alexa Hocevar. “I love her personality, she’s amazing. She’s very sweet. She was very welcoming and genuine from when I first met her.”
While it remains to be seen whether the current feelings survive an entire basketball season, along with its inherent ups and downs, right now, Zoeckler’s road trip name drop appears to have been quite inspired.
“It’s been amazing,” White said. “It’s been a blessing being back, seeing familiar faces, and just continuing the mark that I made in my four years and continuing to make an impact. I feel like that’s what it’s all about, and so I’ve been able to do that. I’ve been blessed to do that with Coach Dunn.”
“It’s been a blessing.”
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