"I love sports, history and writing. Those passions have allowed me to evolve into an author. I really enjoy telling a story that people find engaging." - David White

David H. White

David H. White

After graduating in 1984 from Vanderbilt University with a major in European History, David accepted a staff position with the Reagan-Bush campaign. After the successful election of Ronald Reagan to a second term in office in which David prepared the President for debates among other duties, he declined an opportunity to work at the White House and returned to his hometown of Birmingham where he was 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 at an outstanding company, but the steel business wasn't his thing. David loved sports. So he moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama in August, 1986, and began reporting on Alabama football and basketball for WFOX, a popular local 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 sports weekly Carolina Blue, part of the powerhouse broadcasting company, Jefferson Pilot. Working closely with editor John Kilgo, David learned a number of writing techniques: how to pace a story, how to analyze clearly and write coherently..

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. Then he went over to the Burlington Times-News in Burlington, N.C. where he was a workaholic.

David’s high school coverage took him to a number of small towns where he persevered  with little phone service and sometimes not the most helpful coaches. The coaches' alacrity for helping had mostly to do with whether they won or lost. Before the advent of email, stories had to be phoned-in; problem was, phones weren’t always easy to find.

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.  He was a tough taskmaster, but David learned a great deal and took the toughness he endured with him to his next ventures.

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 Paul “Bear” Bryant at Alabama where he won 2 national championships working for the ultimate icon in college football coaching. Shorty 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.

David lives in Birmingham with his beloved wife, Beth, and his two daughters, Isabelle and Fairbanks. Isabelle, 28, is an advertising representative who lives in New York City. Fairbanks, 24, is getting her graduate degree in Liberal Arts in hopes of teaching in high school.