Ex-Cal Star Russell White Reflects on `Magical' Kickoff Return vs. Miami

White burst onto the scene in 1990 with a 99-yard return against the national champs the first time he touched the ball at Memorial Stadium

Russell White finds running room against Washington / Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

Back on Sept. 15, 1990, defending national champion Miami came to town to face Cal at Memorial Stadium.

Just as Saturday night’s between the Golden Bears and No. 8 Hurricanes is a big deal, so was the matchup 34 seasons ago.

Of course, ESPN’s College GameDay program wasn’t yet visiting college campuses in 1990. And the Bears played in the Pac-10, not the Atlantic Coast Conference, their new home as of this fall.

But 47,000 fans showed up that day to quench a curiosity that had been percolating for more than a year.

“The crowd was there,” Russell White recalled this week. “There was a lot going through the air — it was totally exciting. It was Miami. It was the Cal Bears.

“It was Russell White, this kid we’ve heard so much about. Let’s see if our investment was worth it?”

Cal fans got their answer almost immediately that afternoon. White signed with the Bears more than a year earlier, the most coveted high school running back in the country. But he had to sit out a year to focus on academics, a victim of the NCAA’s since-scrapped Prop. 48 rule related to standardized testing.

The Hurricanes kicked a field goal to lead 3-0 after the game’s first possession. then kicked to the Bears. The ball went to White on the 1-yard line and the crowd held its breath.

Asked if he recalls feeling nervous, White shifted to game mode.

“I don’t get nervous and I don’t get scared. I’m not very easily intimidated. I’m going to do what I’m going to do,” said White, now 53. “That’s the way my Mom has always raised me: Go out and be you. That was it. It wasn’t no nerves, no jitters, no worries.

“Now, if you had told me I was going to run it back 99 yards on my first touch in Memorial Stadium, I probably would have called you crazy.”

But that's exactly what happened.

How the kickoff return unfolded

White took the ball and glided up the right sideline, twice shaking off would-be tacklers. He cut diagonally across the field, shedding a shoulder tackle at the Miami 40-yard line before sprinting to the end zone.

“What I remember is like any kickoff that year, you come into the huddle, you call which way we’re going to run it and go `Break.’ It was just that simple,” he recalled. “Everyone knew what their jobs were. Sure enough, they kick off and there’s a hole. As a running back, you go through that hole.

“I didn’t realize I was going to wind up in broad daylight.”

Cal fans saw just what they’d been dreaming of in a prospect who seemed too good to be true after rushing for 5,998 rushing yards and 94 touchdowns at Crespi High School in Encino.

It took White some time to digest the moment.

“As a player because of the way I’m built, you’re always moving onto the next thing. You never really enjoyed those moments until you’re done with the game,” he said. “I didn’t realize what I had done. Everyone there was like, `Wow.’ For me, it was a touchdown like any other touchdown.

“As I look back at it now, you realize how magical that moment really was, not only for the Golden Bears but for myself.”

A year after losing 30-3 at Miami, Cal was eager to measure itself against the national champs. 

“We kind of felt like, `Hey, we know who they are.’ It was one of those things, can I go the distance with you? I might get a lucky punch, but can I go the distance?”

The answer was no. The Bears battled the visitors into the third quarter before the Hurricanes pulled away for a 52-24 victory. 

Russell White / Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

But White was no flash-in-the-pan. He rushed for at least 1,000 yards for three straight seasons and he still owns Cal’s career records for rushing yards (3,367) and rushing touchdowns (35). Yep, more than Chuck Muncie, more than Marshawn Lynch.

He was a two-time All-Pac-12 pick and a Football Writers’ first-team All-American as a junior in 1991, when the Bears went 10-2 and routed Clemson 37-13 in the Citrus Bowl, the program’s first New Year’s Day bowl victory in 54 years.

His most proud achievement at Cal did not come on the football field.

White, who had struggled in the classroom his entire life, finally was diagnosed as having a reading disability. Getting the help he needed and deserved at Cal, he graduated in four years with a degree in social welfare.

The road was not easy. Missing football and not yet sure he belonged, White contemplated dropping out of Cal during Christmas break his freshman year. “My Mom corrected that whole thought process real quick,” he said.

White's academic mission

Eventually, White became so determined to earn his diploma that he bypassed entering the NFL after a sensational junior year in order to complete his academic mission. 

To folks who say he perhaps should have left school a year earlier, when his draft stock was higher, White has no argument. “I agree with those people. That’s the truth. Probably,” he said. “But who’s to say I would have anything of that left today.

“Because if I would have left, guess what, I wasn’t coming back.”

So his drive for success in the classroom pushed White for four years.

“It was a big motivation from the fact that it was something that was not easily attainable for me. Football was easy to me,” he said. “To walk out of here after four years with a degree, that’s something that can never be taken away from me.

“Sometimes you can’t believe you even got through it. To graduate from a prestigious university like Berkeley, you’d never pick me out of that fourth-grade picture to be the kid to do it.”

White’s NFL experience was limited to five games and two rushing attempts with the Los Angeles Rams in 1993. But he has gone on to work as a coach and teacher, including a stint at commissioner of the Oakland Athletic League.

Since 2016, he has served as assistant athletic director and head football and track & field coach at Flintridge Prep, a grades 7-12 private school located in La Cañada Flintridge in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains in Los Angeles County.

He and his wife have three children: Yasmeen, 22, a former college soccer player; Xavier, 19, a freshman linebacker at Central Michigan; and Zachary, 17, a 6-foot-6 junior basketball player at Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks High.

White still roots for his old school, although he won’t make it up to the Bay Area for the Miami game. “I’ve kind of changed into this Dad, where everything `me’ is so far on the back burner,” he said, laughing.

White said he’s “shocked” that his Cal rushing record remains on the books.

“They’ve had some good runners, I’ll tell you that. With Marshawn (Lynch) and Jahvid Best, all those guys, they had great backs,” he said. “Thirty-plus years and it’s still standing.”

Meeting Jaydn Ott

By chance, White met Cal’s current star running back, Jaydn Ott, in an elevator at the team hotel for the Independence Bowl at Shreveport, Louisiana, last December.

“I didn’t know what he looks like in person. I just kind of struck up a conversation. `Hey, you on the team? What’s your name?’ He said his name and I said, `How you doing, my name is Russell White.’

“He said, `Wait a minute, I’ve been waiting to meet you.’ “

Ott entered this season needing 1,156 yards to move past White to the top of Cal’s rushing chart. An ankle injury has made that pursuit tougher, limiting him to 133 yards and three games over the first four weeks. 

“He’s a good runner,” White said. “I wish for (him) to get healthy, don’t get me wrong. Looks like I’ll be able to hang around a little longer.”

Three decades later, White’s feelings for his alma mater also remain strong. 

“It’s beautiful, every memory I have at Cal,” he said. “It was a great opportunity. I’m glad I jumped on it with all the consequences that I had to go through as far as sitting out. 

“We accomplished a lot, things that are never done. Great group of guys. It’s nothing but smiles when I think about Berkeley.”