Dave White Moves Up Edison’s Football Ladder to Top Rung

Dave White has been named Edison High School’s head football coach, announced Lyman Clower, the school’s athletic director, Monday.

White, an assistant football coach and girls’ basketball coach, replaces Bill Workman, who recently accepted the coaching job at Orange Coast College.

The 30-year-old White, a former Edison quarterback, assisted Workman for the past seven years in building one of Orange County’s best football programs.

During that stretch, the Chargers won the Sunset League title every year but one and earned three CIF Southern Section championships. Last season, the Chargers were Sunset League co-champions with Marina and Southern Section co-champions with Long Beach Poly in the Big Five division.

“Dave’s a very, very enthusiastic young coach who has been able earn the respect of the other coaches and the kids who play for him,” Clower said. “He’s one of those people who bleeds green (the school color) . . . This is something I’m sure he’s thought about since he was in high school.”

White has been on campus as a student and coach at Edison for 11 of the school’s 16 years.

“Bill was my coach in my senior year, so in his first win as a varsity coach, I was a player,” White said. “And in his last (high school) win, I was a coach with him.”

White said he felt well-prepared to deal with the pressures of his new position.

“Bill’s really prepared me to be a head coach,” said White, who has served as defensive coordinator the past four seasons. “He’s let me do a lot of things and delegated a lot of authority to me.”

The school administration did not seek outside candidates for the job, Clower said.

A selection committee consisting of Clower, principal Jack Kennedy, activities director Bill Tangeman and Pauline Bachakes, girls’ athletic director, discussed the subject with the other coaches and returning players. The consensus was clear.

“We decided not to open it up, and go right with Dave,” Clower said.

“The kids were so unanimous in who they wanted, and the coaching staff was so unanimous in who they wanted . . . even the other people in the district assumed it would be Dave.

“Since they announced that Bill was going to be at Orange Coast, I still haven’t received a call from a coach. I thought that first weekend, I’d receive a million. Last time (the job was open), I received about 200 calls (from coaches interested in applying).”

“But everyone knew Dave had been in the program and he had done so well in everything he has done, that he was the one.”

A 1974 graduate of Edison, White was the quarterback on Orange Coast’s 1975 national championship team. He still has the OCC school record of 20 touchdowns in a season.

He said his experience at Oregon State University, where wins came much less frequently, taught him a great deal. He lost his starting position in his second season due to a knee injury and was forced to redshirt. When he returned as a senior, he did not always play.

“I think it made me a better coach,” he said. “I had always tasted starting and always tasted winning. Then I got up there, and they didn’t win as much, and my senior year, I didn’t get to play as much.

“I became a little more empathetic to the people who aren’t starters. Now I always tell the players on the bench on my basketball team and on the football team that I’ve been there and I think it made me a better person.”

White was obviously pleased to be chosen for the job. “It’s been a pretty good year for me,” White said. “We were co-champions in football, the (girls’) basketball team did real well (placing second in league), we had a baby boy, and I got the head coaching job.”

White and his wife Suzanne, a 1976 Edison graduate, named their 9-week-old son, Matthew, after former Edison player Matt Hombs. Hombs was an All-CIF defensive back in 1982 who died in a car accident while on a recruiting trip to Boise State University in January, 1983.

White said he intends to continue coaching the girls’ basketball team, which was 21-7 in 1985, for another season since he has three returning starters. The basketball team has never missed the playoffs in his six seasons as coach.