Alvin White, Millennium Hall of Fame

Richard Dunn

In Alvin White’s storied and well-traveled football career, he bore

witness to the live settings of “North Dallas Forty” as a role player on

the field and silver screen.

The patriotic former Newport Harbor High standout, instrumental to

getting American flag decals placed on the team’s helmets in 1970, played

11 years of professional and semipro football following an outstanding

collegiate career at Orange Coast College and Oregon State University.

A quarterback and punter who bounced around so much that his peers called

him “the grasshopper,” White played in virtually every league imaginable,

including the NFL with the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints, after

starting his pro career with the Southern California Sun in the

long-defunct World Football League.

“I played all over the United States,” said White, who also endured three

seasons in the Canadian Football League and had stints in the USFL. “I

even played some semipro football in Kentucky. I’ve been all over Texas,

Georgia, North Carolina, Florida ... you name it.”

White, who also played for the semipro Orange County Rhinos, has seen it

all in football, and, with his outgoing personality, strong throwing arm,

athletic physique (6-foot-3, 220 pounds) and good connections, played bit

parts in six movies, including the 1979 seriocomic “North Dallas Forty”

starring Mac Davis and Nick Nolte.

White also appeared in football-themed films “Two Minute Warning”,

“Semi-Tough” and “The Best of Times”, and when his daughter, Carly, was

born, the Screen Actors Guild picked up the hospital bill. “I was in

shock,” he said.

After his collegiate career, White, drafted by the Los Angeles Rams out

of Oregon State, began to see football in a different light.

When White was in Saints training camp at Vero Beach, Fla., he watched

players who had just been cut board a yellow school bus for a 1 1/2-hour

journey to the airport, while being a given a sack lunch in assembly line

fashion on their way up the airplane steps.

“I saw them put 30 guys on the bus,” White said. “All the (players) on

the practice field were laughing, because it was pretty funny looking ...

imagine being an NFL veteran and given a sack lunch on the way to the

airport, because it’s so far away ...the NFL sure had its moments.”

Bad news -- as White can attest -- comes when the team’s equipment guy or

the head coach’s lieutenant (“some little assistant,” he said) knocks on

your door and says, “Bring your playbook, coach wants to talk to you.”

That’s when you know you’re doomed and your agent needs to start working

the phones. “With the Saints, we used to call him The Turk,” White said,

“because he carries a big ax with a big blade.”

As a prep, White carried the flag for Newport Harbor, quite literally.

In the fall of 1970, Ernie Johnson’s only season as coach, the Sailors

won the Sunset League co-championship, the school’s first football title

in 28 years.

“Ernie had been at (El Rancho High in Pico Rivera) and coached them (to

great success), then he took a bunch of surfer kids and taught us how to

play football,” said White, who completed 50 of 119 passes for 644 yards

that season, while rushing for 264 yards in 94 carries.

“After that year, it was like a (winning) tradition started, because for

the next few years, (quarterback Steve) Bukich’s teams went to the

playoffs, and a whole bunch of Newport Harbor teams have been winning

since ... it was like the beginning of things.”

Winning wasn’t all White’s class started. One day after a summer workout,

White, Grant Gelker, “Sleepy” Tripp and a host of others cruised down to

a Balboa Island gift shop, saw an American flag decal and brought it back

to Johnson, who gave them the green light to put the flag on their

helmets.

“It was kind of a patriotic statement. It was the early ‘70s and Vietnam

was still going on,” White said. “It was a positive. It was something I

think we needed at the time, because of all the (war) protests and people

burning American flags. So it was kind of our stand to tell people, ‘Hey,

it’s not that bad to be an American.’

“Ernie was a former military guy and instilled that in all of us. He was

a philosophical type of guy and he’d give us all kinds of lectures. We

all grew up, not just physically, but mentally, as football players.”

White grew even more at OCC, where he established several records,

including the career mark of 3,425 passing yards, which was broken last

season by Jared Flint (3,999). Flint also broke White’s records for

career attempts (572) and completions (311).

Today’s honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame lives in

Corvallis, Ore., and works in construction. He and his wife, Donna, have

two children: James, 22, and Carly, a 17-year-old freshman and honor

student at Oregon State.