Northview class of 1988 graduate Donnie Tyndall’s days start and end the same way: watching basketball.
In the morning, it’s his Grand Rapids Drive team and their competition. At night, it’s the NBA. The rest of his morning and most of his afternoon are also filled with basketball in the form of players, practices and coaching staff.
Spending every waking moment of his day surrounded by the game he loves isn’t something new to Tyndall. His life has been this way since he played high school ball, right here at Northview.
“He was what you call a gym rat,” Northview assistant principal and former classmate of Tyndall’s, Brent Dickerson, said. “He always wanted to be in the gym and play basketball.”
Dickerson and Tyndall go way back, all the way to the late 1980s. Although Tyndall graduated in 1988 and was a year older than Dickerson, they were good friends.
“He was my first friend with a car. We’d go out to Grand Valley basketball games, and we’d play a lot of pickup basketball. A lot of pickup basketball. We also played in some [Gus] Macker tournaments,” Dickerson said.
Tyndall didn’t grow up through Northview as many people do. He started attending at the beginning of his junior year. But, according to Dickerson, he was immediately well-liked.
Tyndall’s high school physical education teacher, Donna Host, also remembers both his spirited personality and inspired basketball abilities.
“He was respectful to staff and students,” Host remembers. “He totally enjoyed the high school experience, and he was a phenomenal basketball player.”
After graduating from high school, Tyndall went on to play Division I basketball at Morehead State University in Kentucky. There he got a degree in history education, planning to be both a teacher and a coach.
While getting his Master’s at Louisiana State University, he was an assistant coach on their basketball team.
Teaching would have to wait.
His resume reflects a variety of coaching experiences. He continued on to become the head coach at Iowa Central Community College then two Division I universities, the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Tennessee.
His most recent gig brought him a little closer to home: starting in 2018 Tyndall became the head coach of the Grand Rapids Drive.
“I’ve had a chance to reconnect with some old classmates and bumped into some different teachers,” Tyndall said.
Tyndall even ran into his old basketball coach at a Drive game.
When he’s not coaching his own team, Tyndall tries to make time to visit Northview. On February 14, he called the Northview boys varsity game against Greenville over the radio with Mike Debole, Northview’s former JV coach during Tyndall’s years.
Northview’s principal and assistant principal during Tyndall’s high school career were William Pappas and Ken Clemens. They had an impact on him not only throughout high school, but they helped to prepare him for the rest of his life.
“There was structure, there was discipline, there was accountability,” Tyndall said. “The infrastructure at Northview, starting with the principal, assistant principal, and the teachers that were in place certainly provided me to move in the right direction, to try and better myself for down the road.”
Whether he’s watching tape, planning a practice or meeting with his staff, Tyndall has always devoted his life to the game he loves and hopes to continue.
