It was on banners at the games, on players’ forearm pads, and practically anywhere else the phrase could be displayed.
“Win4White.”
var _ndnq = _ndnq || []; _ndnq.push([’embed’]);
http://launch.newsinc.com/js/embed.js
White is Dave White. He announced months before this season began that it would be his final season as Edison’s coach. The 2016 season was White’s 31st season as the head coach of the school where he played high school football.
That “Win4White” stuff could have been a burden on the Edison players who wanted to give their coach the best possible final season.
If there was any such burden on the players, it did not show. The Chargers won a CIF-Southern Section championship and the Sunset League championship.
For keeping Edison focused on those goals while not succumbing to any “Win4White” pressure, White is the Register’s Orange County football coach of the year.
There have been few two-time Register football coaches of the year. White is one of them, having received the award in 2001.
Edison finished the season 13-2. The Chargers won the CIF-SS Division 3 championship. Their only losses were to Mater Dei in a nonleague game and to San Clemente in a CIF Regional playoff game.
Mater Dei finished the season No. 1 in Orange County and was No. 1 in the state for several weeks. San Clemente won the CIF-SS Division 2 championship and won a CIF State championship.
How did White keep his impending exit from being a distraction or putting too much pressure on Edison’s players?
“Well, we didn’t talk about it as a team,” White said. “The kids did talk about it among themselves. I told them during the playoffs that ‘this is your team’ and I told the seniors ‘this is your only senior year.’”
Still, among players like Edison All-Orange County senior linebacker Kenny Carmichael there was plenty of win-for-the-coach emphasis.
“We really love the guy and he deserved a great final season,” Carmichael said.
The team was one of White’s easier teams to handle in his 31 years that produced a 238-119-3 career record, two CIF-SS football championships and 14 Sunset League titles.
“Some of our better teams had some headcases,” White said. “But we had no egos on this team. We had some very good skills, and I told them ‘there’s only one ball per play, so you’re going to have to put the team first’ and they did that.”
Carmichael said White made it easy to put the team first.
“He doesn’t make this all about football,” Carmichael said. “He makes it about being a good person, a good son, a good brother and some day being a good father. I’m going to carry those lessons with me for the rest of my life.”
When White was the quarterback at Edison in the early 1970s, the coach there who taught him such lessons was Bill Workman.
“Bill Workman is No. 1,” said White of his most influential mentors, along with White’s parents and Dick Tucker, White’s coach when White played on Orange Coast College’s 1975 national championship team before going on to play at Oregon State.
White was an assistant coach under Workman for six years before Workman departed to coach at Orange Coast in 1986, and White replaced Workman.
White said he was a different coach in 2016 than he was in 1986.
“When you’re young,” he said, “you’re so competitive and it’s all about the wins and losses. When you’re older, you realize it’s not all about the wins and losses. It’s all about the kids.”
So, if Dave White today could go back in time and advise the Dave White of 30 years ago, he would say …
“Try to enjoy it more and stop stressing over the little things,” White said. “Enjoy the process and the journey. And I think I did that this year.”
ALL COUNTY FOOTBALL
- OCVarsity Hot Shots: The All-County football team 2016
- All-County football: First team defense
- All-County football: First team offense
- All-County football: First team specialists
- Edison’s Dave White is the O.C. coach of the year
- Mater Dei’s JT Daniels is the O.C. offensive player of the year
- Mission Viejo’s Colin Schooler is the O.C. defensive player of the year
- All-County football: Second Team
- All-County football: Third Team
- All-league football teams 2016
Contact the writer: sfryer@scng.com
