Texas Tech Unsung Heroes: Johnathon White

Johnathon White was a small town kid with big dreams. White grew up in Bremond, Texas, which has a population of 920. He loved playing sports and said he dreamed of playing college football. The problem, however, is that big college programs rarely notice the high school kids from little towns. He had Division III offers, and said he had decided to be content with those. Then things changed.

Four weeks before his high school graduation, he received a call from Chad Glasgow, who was Texas Tech’s Defensive Coordinator at the time. Glasgow asked White if he’d be interested in being a preferred walk on. All of a sudden, his dream was coming true. The next month was crazy for White.

He was accepted at Texas Tech, graduated high school, and then moved to Lubbock two days after his high school graduation. He didn’t have a guaranteed place to live. White said he ended up moving in with a 28-year-old grad student whom he had never met before.

After moving to Lubbock and starting football, he was told he wasn’t going to be able to play because of an injury that had happened to his neck during high school. The coaches told him he should just go home. But White wasn’t ready to give up.

White said he rehabbed and rehabbed. He prayed about it, and decided he needed to seek the word of a specialist. It was a smart move, because the specialist said he was good to go, and cleared him to play again. White said it’s only by the grace of God that he had the strength to stay.

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From there, he said the only thing he knew how to do was work as hard as he could every day to try to prove that he belonged on the Red Raiders.

“He’s a blue-collar guy who does what he’s supposed to do, and works as hard as he can,”Summitt Hogue, a former teammate, said. “Everything John has, he earned. Through blood, sweat and tears, he earned that scholarship and he earned every rep he gets. And he works just as hard in the classroom.”

It took going through three different position coaches, three different defensive coordinators, and more of his hard work, but Johnathon White was finally awarded a scholarship.

In 2013, he played in eight games, recording tackles against West Virginia and Stephen F. Austin, and recorded a tackle in the bowl game win against Arizona State. After a quick change in plans, and a minor set back, White is finally achieving his dreams.

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