Latest in a series of "Where are they now?" features on members of the Colgate athletics family. Click Here for previous profiles.

HAMILTON – You had your arms full trying to tackle Henry White.

The Colgate Hall of Honor recipient from 2001 found more ways than one to get his hands on the football during his 1970s heyday. White played tailback and returned kickoffs with the best of them, helping the Raiders under head coach Fred Dunlap to a combined 18-3 record over his final two seasons.

"I enjoyed both, to be honest," White said of his dual skills. "Both had their benefits. Playing running back, you got a chance to run the ball behind great blocking and got to see the hole. On kickoffs, I probably had goals in regards to yardages that I wanted to accomplish on each return.

"My thing was I always wanted to be better than the 20-yard line. For me that was the key. If you're not going to get past the 20-yard line, you don't even need to be catching the ball. My goal was to extend that as much as possible."

White arrived at Colgate from Lincoln, Del. (Cape Henlopen High School), and earned varsity letters from 1974 through 1977. He was recruited and played his first two seasons under head coach Neil Wheelwright. But Dunlap took over to begin the 1976 campaign and not only changed the Raiders' offensive style but also their fortunes.

Wheelwright preferred the wishbone attack on offense; Dunlap switched to the wing-T formation.

"The wishbone was more of a power-speed type offense if you had the right personnel to run it," White said. "The wing-T was more misdirection and deception to some degree, and it fit our personnel so much better. I enjoyed it and the whole team did. We did well my junior and senior years because that style was better suited for the team and personnel we had."

Season Record for Wins
Colgate those first two seasons under Dunlap went 8-2 and 10-1. The 1976 squad was undefeated before dropping its final two games – 29-13 at Army and 17-9 to Rutgers under the lights in Giants Stadium. But the next year's team earned revenge on Rutgers right out of the gates, whipping the Scarlet Knights 23-0 in Hamilton en route to the most season wins in school history at that time.

"Once we got that first year under our belts, we knew what was going on," White said. "We knew we could take our time and let the plays develop and follow our blocks. It was just a much better offense for the entire team.

"Running the ball was easy. I played a lot of sandlot football growing up and it provided a solid foundation for understanding the running game."

White that senior year became only the second player in school history to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season, finishing with 1,032. He also broke the school record for all-purpose yardage in a season with 1,877 – ranking second in the nation – and averaged a school record 10.6 per play. In his sophomore season, White ranked ninth nationally in kickoff returns with a 25.8-yard average.

White finished his collegiate career with 1,976 rushing yards, an accomplishment that ranked fifth on the Colgate charts at the time. For his performance, White was selected to participate in the Blue-Gray All-Star Game in Montgomery, Ala.

"That was a good opportunity," he said. "I got a chance to meet a lot of players from other parts of the country and we had a really good time. Todd Christiansen, who went on to play for the Oakland Raiders – he and I did very well in the game. He was the fullback in that game and I was the tailback. His stats were just a little bit better than mine and he got the MVP of that game. We both had very good games.

"It was a great experience playing there. We had some good food, wonderful camaraderie and just a really good time. It was a nice way to end my college career."

Hall of Honor Experience
In 2001, White was inducted into the Colgate Athletics Hall of Honor. He remembers seeing old teammates and enjoying the weekend as a wonderful experience.

"Wow. It was a very good evening," he said. "I had thought of myself as one member of a team but this was an incredible honor.

"Coming back and seeing your teammates and others – that was good. It was a good evening."

White today is retired, but still working. He was hired by DuPont, a Delaware company, in 1979 and spent time in Baltimore, California and then Michigan before ending up in Illinois, where he lives today. Throughout a 30-year career, White held various assignments in marketing, sales and information technology.

He now holds a part-time position with Delta Air Lines/DAL Global Services.

"It gives me an opportunity to stay engaged in the workplace and remain physically active," he said.

When he's not working on your travel destinations, White and his wife, Rhonda, are keeping tabs on two sons in college and another back in Delaware. The oldest, George H. White III, lives in dad's hometown of Lincoln; Grant is at Heartland Community College in Normal, Ill., and Gregory is a junior at Colgate and works with the football team as a student member of the video coordination staff.

"Obviously Colgate is a fine academic institution; I'm proud of it," White said. "I'm very pleased Greg has taken advantage of the opportunity to go to Colgate.

"Colgate was his first choice. He had many other opportunities to go to schools all across the country, and he chose to go to Colgate. I'm very pleased he made that decision and he is doing well."

Colgate has its good name because of people like Henry White and his family. Polite, gentlemanly, successful, humble – those modifiers and more describe one of the best running backs in Colgate football history.