- May 2, 2024
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Shawn White leads the team in touchdowns but also helps his teammates study for school.
Shawn White began his high school football career as a freshman on varsity. But after the coaches put him at linebacker, White asked the coaches something they probably weren’t used to hearing.
White told his coaches he’d rather develop as a running back. To do that, he wanted to be sent down to the junior-varsity squad.
That’s an unexpected move from someone who wears a Superman T-shirt under his jersey each game.
White apparently knew what he was doing, though. He always was a running back at heart.
Staten Island to Palm Coast
White grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., with his mother, Janel Walker, and sister, Kayla Walker.
After a few years of playing flag football, he joined the Staten Island Pee Wee Football League.
At 8 years old, White set the New York City Pee Wee single-season record for touchdowns scored, with 36. His team went 10-0 that season. In one game, White said, he scored five touchdowns on five carries.
In a game when he was 9, the score was tied, and White’s team had the ball, 10 yards from the goal line, with 40 seconds remaining.
White’s coach called for a run up the middle on first down.
“I got the ball, and my center missed his block, and the nose tackle hit me right away,” White recalled. “After six or seven players got on me, I heard my mom screaming, ‘Keep your legs moving!’”
He trudged on toward the 5-yard line.
“I was running and running, and when I dropped, they removed everyone off the pile, and there I was, in the end zone, with 20 seconds left,” he said.
White said a fan in the stands took a picture of the play as White was surrounded by all 11 defenders, marching into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
While most running backs replay fancy moves and long runs on their personal highlight reels, White relishes in plays that help his team.
As Matanzas’ captain, he is the ultimate team player, according to his coaches.
Now, eight years after that memorable play, White is creating more memories in Flagler County. Though he has been a standout on the Pirates, that wasn’t the original plan.
When White first moved down to Florida with his family, he was initially going to attend Flagler Palm Coast High School.
However, the coach at the time told him he’d never play running back for the Bulldogs.
“My mom remembers that like it just happened yesterday, and she always reminds me of that story so I won’t quit,” White said.
Matanzas coach Keith Lagocki said he didn’t know exactly what he was going to get in White as a player four years ago.
It turns out he got the whole package, and possibly the best player Matanzas has seen in its short history.
Lagocki said that, although White can be a monster on the field, he’s quiet about the things he does for people, such as helping his teammates study for their classes.
“Those things go unseen by a lot of people,” Lagocki said. “He is a great teammate and really works hard to try and make it so everybody is able to have team and individual success.”
Walker said: “He is the kind of person who will put other people who he cares about before himself.”
Engineering a successful life
White, an astute math student, isn’t quite sure where he will end up in the fall. He does intend on playing college football.
White said his first choice would be Georgia Tech. Boasting a 3.75 GPA, he plans to minor in mathematics and major in engineering.
White did say, however, that if it came down to picking a top football school that doesn’t offer much money in the way of scholarships or a lower-level school that will give him a full ride, he’d choose the route of a free education.
So far this season, White has tallied 11 rushing TDs through four games. That matches his season total from last year, and he credits his offensive line for his success.
“This has been my offensive line for four years now; we’ve played through thick and thin,” White said. “I always tell people I’m nothing without my offensive line, and if they can’t get their jobs done, then I can’t get my job done. It’s the least glorified position in the game.”
A bracelet and a prayer
Before each game, White joins his team in prayer before the pre-game meal.
Then, while the team begins chowing down, White remains seated. Head down. Hands folded. He says an extra prayer — a prayer that his grandmother used to say all the time while he was growing up. His grandmother died two years ago.
White and his sister bought their grandmother a bracelet before her death. He now wears the bracelet every second of every day, unless he’s on the field.
Before heading out of the locker room, White kisses the bracelet and stows it in his locker. It will be there for him when the final whistle blows.
It’s just one way he keeps his family close to him. He also recognizes everything his mother has done to help, from his Pee Wee days and even before.
A budding track star, Walker had her son when she was 19 years old.
“She gave up that dream for me,” White said. “She always told me to finish four years of college, and I told her I’d do that for her because she sacrificed so much for me.”
Ideally, White won’t go to a college too far from home. He enjoys his mother screaming as loud as possible at his games. (Walker is easy to find at Pirates games — she’s the one standing at the fence, yelling at the top of her lungs.)
“I would love to be in the stands when that first (college game) happens,” Walker said. “I don’t know where it’s going to be, but I hope it’s somewhere ... close so I can be there.”
