LSU recruited White as an, "athlete," and he knew what that meant. Quarterback wasn't promised. It probably wasn't even on the radar. But when West Virginia began recruiting White only as a quarterback and had a spread offense to custom-fit his skills, LSU changed its tune.
Its coach told White he could play quarterback.
"I didn't think they were being honest," White says.
Its coach also said the previous year's top quarterback recruit, JaMarcus Russell, might not have the brains to play quarterback. Like White, Russell was from the Mobile, Ala., area. He knew Russell.
"I thought, 'If they were going to say that about him to me, what were they going to say about me to a [recruit] a year from now?'" White says. "I just didn't trust what I was being told."
So White went to West Virginia, started four years, won four bowl games and set records as a passer and a runner. But here's the kicker to that story: The LSU coach was Nick Saban, the guy who took lying to a new level a few years later as Dolphins coach.
So give White points for figuring in a few weeks what it took everyone in South Florida a few years to understand. But then White's always been a quick read, as well as hard of hearing to detractors.
"Everywhere he goes people have said he couldn't do this and couldn't do that," says James White, the Daphne fire chief, which is why his son has a tattoo of an Indian chief on his shoulder. "Couldn't beat out his competition in high school. Wasn't a big-time college player. It's the same in the NFL. But I love it when people tell him what he can't do.
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