The community is mourning the loss of beloved coach and Cumberland Recreation Director Keith O. White.

White, 52, died Monday in Lynchburg, according to his obituary.

While coaching for many years, White, of Cumberland, served as the county’s recreation director since 2005 — beginning the role as a part-time county employee.

Alfonso Bell, the athletic director at the county’s high school, worked with White for 17 years in high school and rec department athletics.

He said that White not only coached many sports and served as county recreation director, but also coached JV football and served as the county rec program’s football commissioner.

“When I first met him, I was just getting started as one of the high school coaches here at Cumberland, as the head coach at Cumberland High School,” Bell said. “I was looking for a coaching staff, and I went down to the youth league … and I watched some of their football games. And I saw, you know, how he ran his programs down there.”

Bell said, at the time, the high school’s football program wasn’t as good as it could have been.

“And I knew to build my program at the high school that I had to help work with the youth league so they would know what to do and to try to do things to be on the same page as the high school to build our program in the community.”

“No doubt. No doubt. No doubt,” Bell said when asked if White had an impact on the youth of the community. “Because, that was one of the things, you know, I saw the way he communicated with the kids, and that’s what I wanted to do at the high school, and we knew if we worked together and we got all these kids on the same page we could build a good program here in Cumberland County.”

Kids and parents both loved White, he said. “He had a great personality. He was a great fit.”

“We just clicked in every aspect … He’s touched a lot of kids.”

County Administrator and County Attorney Vivian Seay Giles, who worked with White, said that he was 100 percent dedicated to the children of Cumberland.

“It was always about the children, and what would be in the best interests, how we could structure programs, what we needed to happen to take care of those kids,” she said.

She agreed that the community has suffered a great loss in White’s death.

“I knew Coach White pretty much from the moment I stepped on to a baseball field in Cumberland off of Route 13 at the ripe old age of 4,” said Cartersville native Kory Clayton. “After that, he was around for basically every single sport and season during my youth, all the way through high school. Whether it be baseball, football or basketball, he was there in some capacity as a coach or mentor.”

He said that he’ll always remember that White didn’t put up with excuses “no matter how good they sounded.”

“He wanted your best, which boiled down to personal accountability. That very attribute is what I got from Coach White and I still hold it true to this day as a 26-year-old man. However, the life lessons and many, many laughs are endless.”

He said that White defined respect.

“For a person not even from Cumberland to dedicate so much time and effort and sweat and to give back to Cumberland County says a lot,” said Travis Gilliam, who worked with White on the county’s youth league.

Gilliam, a county sheriff’s deputy, said White took it upon himself to dedicate his time to volunteer coaching with the youth programs and school division. “Just his overall demeanor amongst everybody, not just the youth, but the adults also, as to the drive that he instilled and the drive that he had and the things he did to push youth.”

“Huge, huge,” Gilliam said of the impact White had on Cumberland’s youth. “There was no one that he wouldn’t get involved with that he felt … needed to be a better person,” he said.

Gilliam said his two daughters and son were very much influenced by White.

“Coach White coached my son with the Cumberland Youth League, Cumberland JV basketball team and Cumberland JV football,” said Cumberland County Middle School staff member Wendy Ford.

“He was not only a coach, but he was also a mentor. He taught my son many things. My son spoke highly of the good laughs that he experienced with Coach White. We are blessed to have known such a wonderful man.”

Jennifer Wade said that White was a mentor to her son, Brandon, who played sports in Cumberland.

“Brandon would always take his advice to heart, and knew that it was going to make a difference,” she said. “If I was ever at a game and did not see Keith there, I knew something must have been wrong.”