I love sports, history and writing. Those passions have allowed me to evolve into an author; I truly enjoy telling a story in my own words.” – David White
After graduating in 1984 from Vanderbilt University (with a major in European History and a minor in Phi Delta Theta), David White accepted a staff position with the Reagan-Bush campaign. After the election, he declined an opportunity to work at the White House—and returned to his hometown of Birmingham. He was then hired as an aluminum salesman for O’Neal Steel.
But first, David took a trip around the world. He climbed a mountain in Nepal. He visited the Greek Island of Mykonos. He played rugby in Australia, caught loads of trout in New Zealand. He returned to the real world in June of 1985, and started with O’Neal in the warehouse.
David enjoyed his work in the plant, but was eventually called into sales. It was a valuable learning experience, but he wasn’t cut out for the steel business. David loved sports. And he was more a man of letters than numbers. So he moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama in August, 1986, and began reporting on Alabama football at a local radio station. He also covered the University football and basketball teams extensively for Bama Magazine.
In August, 1988, David Moved to Chapel Hill, where he covered University of North Carolina Sports for the newsweekly Carolina Blue. Working closely with editor John Kilgo, David learned a number of writing techniques: How to pace a story, how to analyze clearly and coherently, and (most importantly) how to use the dash.
During a typical week, David would write seven or eight features, then cover Carolina’s games on the weekends. From there he moved to the Durham Morning Herald, where he covered high school and college sports.
David’s high school coverage took him to a number of small towns—where he was generally regarded as a nuisance. Before the advent of email, stories had to be phoned-in; problem was, phones weren’t always easy to find.
After covering a late game one evening, David set out on foot in search of a friendly face and a working phone line. A decision which very nearly led to an intimate encounter with a large, angry neighborhood dog. He eluded the dog’s advances by following his computer over a fence, then knocked on the nearest door. The man of the house considered shooting him, but decided instead to let David use his telephone. That’s the way it was in small town North Carolina.
David returned to Birmingham in 1990, where he worked for the Birmingham News, and then the Birmingham Post-Herald, until 2005. At The News, David worked for Ron Ingram—an intense, demanding boss who always considered deadlines sacred and never tolerated mistakes.
From 2005 until 2009, David covered suburban Birmingham school sports for the bi-weekly Over the Mountain Journal.
In 2004, David published his first book, Leadership Lessons for Life, which profiled 46 of Alabama’s most successful high school football coaches. He traveled 4,500 miles throughout Alabama and Georgia, interviewing each coach personally.
In December of 2007, David published his second book: Shorty: A Life In Sports, a biography of high school football coaching legend George “Shorty” White—who won three Alabama state championships in 14 years at Birmingham’s Banks High School, then coached running backs for “Bear” Bryant at Alabama. White recruited many of the starters on Alabama’s back-to-back national championship teams in 1978 and 1979.
His first novel, A Man of Character, was published in October of 2009. A Stroke Of Genius (May 2010) is David’s second novel.