Inside The Huskies

Scott White Promotion Gives UCLA Coaching Staff Deep Husky Influence

The California native will work with others in Westwood who have UW connections.

Dan Raley

Scott White played LB for the Huskies in 2003-06 and now coaches the position at UCLA.
Scott White played LB for the Huskies in 2003-06 and now coaches the position at UCLA. / UW

As UCLA puts together a defensive staff representative of the Big Ten, it has a definite Husky football twist to it.

For two seasons, Ikaika Malloe, the erstwhile former University of Washington safety, outside linebacker and defensive-line and edge-rusher coach (1992-95, 1997-00, 2016-21) has called the shots as the Bruins defensive coordinator.

Last week, UCLA hired former Husky cornerbacks coach Demetrice Martin (2009-11) from Steve Sarkisian's long-ago staff to oversee its collection of corners.

On Tuesday, the Bruins promoted Scott White, a one-time UW linebacker (2003-06), from defensive analyst to associate head coach and linebackers coach.

It's Bow Down to Washington in Westwood.

Nearly 20 years removed from his time at the UW, White is back for a second tour of duty at UCLA sandwiched around a stint at San Jose State. Starting out with Rick Neuheisel's Bruins staff in 2011, he spent four years as a quality coach and three more as the linebackers coach.

When it comes to the ups and downs of college football, White can tell his linebackers all about it.

He came to play for the Huskies from the San Diego area as a Neuheisel signee, only to have the coach get fired before he could suit up for him.

Scott White, right, is shown at UCLA practice as an analyst, now linebackers coach.
Scott White, right, is shown at UCLA practice as an analyst, now linebackers coach. / UCLA

The Husky program fell off in a disastrous manner during his time there -- with a Keith Gilbertson-coached team bottoming out at 1-10 in 2004 and his successor Tyrone Willingham doing little to fix it -- but White did his best to keep it together. A 31-game starter, he had career totals of 278 tackles, 38 tackle for loss and 11 sacks.

Yet he had an unintentional misstep as a sophomore during that forgettable one-win season. Always diligent about meeting his responsibilities, White had showed up for morning treatment in the morning, but was late for an Apple Cup afternoon practice that was moved up two hours and somehow escaped him. He was embarrassed and apologetic.

He later tried to board one of the team charter busses that would take everyone to Pullman, thinking he would be punished by losing his starting job, but Gilbertson intercepted him and had something more harsh in mind. The lame-duck coach, already fired and finishing out the season, told White he wasn't traveling to Washington State.

"I couldn't get you here on time," Gilbertson informed a stunned White. "Maybe the next coach will get you on time."

White watched the game on TV from home, a little bewildered he wasn't in uniform.

"Especially with my track record, where I've never been in trouble off the field and never been a distraction, I didn't agree with it," he said to me at the time when I worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "But I know I have to be more responsible. It was an honest mistake. I wasn't at the club or at the mall or hanging out. I was at my house, waiting for practice to start. It was embarrassing because all season I've been preaching accountability."

White has been nothing but prompt and on time as a college coach. As a defensive analyst this past season, he helped turn Bruins linebacker Carson Schwesinger into an AP first-team All-America selection, and thus earned the promotion for his efforts.

He'll answer to Malloe and work in concert with Martin, with all of them sharing in their mutual Husky pedigree while working together to get UCLA rolling in the Big Ten.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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