Mike White, a longtime football coach and Newport Beach resident who guided University of Illinois, Cal and the NFL’s Oakland Raiders teams, died Dec. 14. He was 89.
There is no better time to honor White than today during the traditional New Year’s Day bowl games.
White volunteered to serve as an assistant coach at Newport Harbor High in 1989 and became a beloved member of Tar Ball family under former Sailors Coach Jeff Brinkley.
White was cheerful, kind, intelligent, courteous and quick-witted. It was easy to enjoy his company.
As a college student, I first met White as a cub reporter at the 1984 Rose Bowl Game when his Fighting Illini lost to UCLA, 45-9, as game MVP Rick Neuheisel, the Bruins’ redshirt senior quarterback, led UCLA to victory. It was my initial introduction to the national sports scene. White depicted a steadfast resilience and maintained a measure of humor even in defeat.
“The only highlight of the game for me was when the scoreboard went out, it eased the pain a little,” White said, referring to a prank by Cal Tech students who found a way to pull the plug on the Rose Bowl scoreboard during the game.
Five years later, while covering high school football, I spotted White again, this time on the sideline at Davidson Field.
Before his stretch as head coach of the Raiders in 1995 and ’96, White coached for the Sailors when his son, Matt, was an all-league receiver at Newport.
“In terms of schematics and X’s and O’s, Mike White was really the one that gave (our program) a big push over the edge with that,” said Brinkley, a member of the CIF Southern Section Hall of Fame who coached the Sailors for 32 years. “I was lucky enough to have him in 1989, and he’s been a friend all that time.”
White joked that Brinkley took “me off the streets while on the downside of my career.”
Brinkley often met with White at a local restaurant and picked his brain. They began diagramming plays on napkins. The Sailors went from 3-7 in 1988 to 9-3 and a CIF playoff berth in ’89, and used White’s offensive concepts throughout Brinkley’s career.
Longtime Newport Harbor strength and conditioning guru Tony Ciarelli, also a defensive coordinator on Brinkley’s football coaching staff and a noted throws coach in track and field, said he was honored to coach alongside White.
“I was fortunate enough to be able to coach with Mike,” Ciarelli said. “He was a great coach and a better human being.
“He was in between head coaching jobs at Cal and Illinois – Mike was the only head coach to win the Pac 8 and the Big 10 – along with a stint with the San Francisco 49ers. He moved to Newport and his son Matt became one of our receivers,” Ciarelli remembered. “He asked Jeff, our head coach, if he could help us out. I was the receiver coach, so I was able to be a sponge daily at practice. It was one of those special moments when you are a coach to be able to pick the brains of a true coaching genius. It was one of those special turning points that happen in a career. I appreciate the opportunity to have been able to know Mike. He will be missed; my condolences to Matt and the White family.”
White guided the Golden Bears to a share of the Pac 8 title in 1975, led the Illini to their first Rose Bowl in 20 years in the 1983 season and coached the Raiders in their first two seasons upon their return to Oakland after leaving Los Angeles.
White coached in the NFL for 17 years, including as an assistant for the 49ers and served on Dick Vermeil’s staff with the St. Louis Rams when they won the Super Bowl following the 1999 season.
White was a long-standing member of the board of directors for the Lott IMPACT Trophy, which honors college football’s defensive best in character and performance at The Pacific Club in Newport Beach.
Richard Dunn, a longtime sportswriter, writes the Dunn Deal column regularly for The Orange County Register’s weekly, The Coastal Current North.