After studying from the best, new Blue Springs coach looks to bring in his own style

When Kelly Donohoe left Blue Springs to become the new football coach at Rockhurst in December, he had a few choice words on taking over for Tony Severino.

“I always tell coaches, don’t follow a legend,” Donahoe said.

And less than two months later, Donahoe’s successor at Blue Springs, David White, echoed eerily similar words.

“The old saying goes in coaching, you never want to follow a legend,” White said. “You want to follow the guy that followed the legend so to speak.”

But despite his words, White holds his own strong background in coaching. He’s watched Mike Leach prepare for a football game with four plays written on a napkin. As the running backs coach at Nevada in 2017, White helped refine the pistol offense that was revolutionized at Nevada during the Colin Kaepernick era.

And now White is set to bring his talent and knowledge to Blue Springs in the fall.

“We are excited to welcome David to the district,” Blue Springs district activities director Mark Bubalo said in a press release. “We believe we have hired an excellent football coach and athletic director who will carry on the fine traditions already established at Blue Springs High School.

“He comes to us highly recommended for his ability to run a first-class program that stresses both academic and athletic excellence.”

White arrives at Blue Springs following a year spent as the head coach at Ridgeland High School in Mississippi. His other most recent high school coaching position was from 2003-07, when he led Las Vegas Bishop Gorman High School to three conference championships and a 30-12 record.

His tenure there saw him coach five All-Americans and 38 future college players.

But it’s his time between Bishop Gorman and Ridgeland that’s truly worth attention.

He spent time coaching and serving as a recruiting coordinator at the University of Oklahoma and was on the staff for the Sooners’ 2008 national championship loss to Florida. He spent seven years as the director of player development for the Army All-American Bowl. Alongside Nevada coach Matt Mumme, a disciple of the air raid offense, White helped combine the pistol and air raid offenses into something he calls the “air pistol.”

And perhaps most importantly, he was a motivational speaker.

Temporarily stepping away from football following his graduation from UNLV in 1995, where he played as a tight end, White found himself missing football more and more.

“I just knew that I wanted to travel and have fun, but every weekend I kept seeing myself wanting to coach,” White told The Star. “So what I did is I just kind of connected with a coach and said ‘Hey, I’d love to come out and speak to the team and talk about my experiences but with a comedic twist and have humor.’”

Before long, White was traveling the country as a motivational speaker for college football teams; first came UCLA, which was soon followed by Wisconsin. Before long, he was visiting three to five major college programs a year.

“It’s designed for camps, so I go out there during two-a-days, and not week one or the third week, but that second week and just really talk about the first day of camp to the end when you graduate and talk about the competitiveness and experiences and how you can really have fun going through this once in a lifetime process,” White said.

It was on these trips that White began taking notes of the different play styles of some of the best coaches in the country, from Ohio State’s Urban Meyer to Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.

“(What) I learned through this process is coach Urban Meyer is different to coach (Bob) Stoops. Coach Stoops is different than Dabo Sweeney,” White said. “And then in high school the coaches I went up against and guys on the staff, everyone’s different, and you want to take a lot of characteristics or how they do it strategically sometimes, but when it’s all said and done, I realize throughout the career that you’ve really just got to be you, you really do.”

White looks to continue the Nevada air pistol offense once he takes the reins at an already run-heavy Blue Springs.

It’s a tactic that will allow his quarterback ample time to read the defense and throw downfield, but with a running back situated behind the quarterback, the QB can quickly hand off the ball in a read option situation.

“It’s what you do and who you are. So that’s what I’ve learned from those experiences, no matter what, just be confident in your own skin and how you want to coach,” White said.

“Kids aren’t dumb, and they’re going to really invest in a process if they believe in you, if they trust you and if they know you’ve got their best interest in mind.”