Chansky's Notebook: Inside Coby's Head

Coby White tells all in vivid, emotional detail.

For the leading scorer in North Carolina high school basketball history and rivaling Phil Ford as UNC’s best-ever freshman point guard, Coby White got a lot of ink last season.

His floppy hair, which he braided and put up in a bun for a few games; the pink sneakers he wore in tribute to the father he lost to cancer; the bullet speed and 3-point shooting in the same package.

We’ve read bits and pieces of it all as White met and surpassed expectations as Carolina’s best one-and-done player of all time. White is projected as a top ten pick with most mock draft boards slating him for No. 7 and the Chicago Bulls Thursday night, when he could be the next-best Tar Heel to ever join the franchise. So, yes, we’ve read and heard and seen a lot about Coby.

But read his first-person story in The Players Tribune for a gripping and heart-rending account of his life since his father died while White was scoring more points than any other high school kid ever in the state while watching his dad decline into a deathly trance before passing away.

White writes about being mad at God, at first, and for crying so much that his tears formed puddles and for wishing his father could have seen him play in college, where he wore pink sneakers all season in honor of “Pops.” The Players Tribune, founded by former Yankees all-star Derek Jeter, is a unique site because it features athletes’ accounts, in their own words, about their personal journeys.

No third-person story can capture the heartache Coby played with at Carolina, the mood swings that his teammates and coaches understood and covered for him when he wouldn’t talk to anyone and the exhilaration he felt playing for the Tar Heels until the reality hit that his Pops wasn’t there to see him motor down the court.

White, obviously, had a special relationship with his father, one that solidified his college choice when his dad referred to UNC’s head coach as “Old Roy, all country.”

We watch these young kids with unbelievable size, speed and skill and often lose sight that they are teenagers being asked to play like men with the heartbeat of an entire state and alumni base pounding with every dribble they make and shot they launch.

You want to know what it was like inside Coby White’s head? Read this. Bring Kleenex.