Dreaming of a White win

Dave White was reviewing formations in the Edison High School football office at 4:30 p.m. Monday, but then it was time to work out. Not just for the players, but for the Edison football coach himself.

White walked to the training room and hopped onto an elliptical machine. Soon, his players came into the room and joined him. Legs moved rapidly back and forth, a bunch of cheetahs hoping to snack on some prey Saturday night at Angel Stadium in the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division championship game.

“Use the handles!” White told his players on the machines. He’s always been one to have a handle on things himself.

A quick look at his coaching numbers is impressive. White’s career record is 174-95-3, and his teams have been remarkably consistent. In his 24 years as coach, Edison has had four losing seasons, despite very challenging schedules year in and year out.

The Chargers have won at least a share of the Sunset League title for five straight years, and this is the third time this decade that they’ve made it to the CIF finals. They lost to Long Beach Poly in 2001 and Orange Lutheran in 2006; White considers those two teams to be perhaps the best in those storied programs’ histories.

Winning a CIF title Saturday, when the top-seeded Chargers (13-0) take on Trinity League champion Servite (12-1), would definitely be sweet for White. It would be his first as head coach and the team’s first since 1985. Yet, White does not feel too much pressure.

“When you’re younger, you sweat all the small stuff and you worry too much, and you don’t enjoy it,” said White, 53. “I kind of made a promise to myself this summer that no matter what happened this year, I was going to enjoy this year. I knew these kids were such great kids that I was going to enjoy them, and not get caught up in wins and losses.

“I’d love to win it,” he added. “Not really for me, though.”

It’s for the Edison players, whom he cares about so much. White is an alum himself, a 1974 graduate who went on to play quarterback at Orange Coast College on the 1975 national championship team, and later at Oregon State. So many people around the program know White’s devotion, especially his wife of 13 years, Lytie.

Everyone in the White family is motivated. Even before marrying Dave White, Lytie White’s career as a hairdresser had been so successful that she bought her own home in Newport Beach, where the family resides. They are opposites in a way, Lytie White’s bubbly personality and Dave White’s quietness that has gotten a bit more outgoing over the years out of necessity. Yet, they are both determined.

“When he’s in football season, and he doesn’t get home right on time and he has long days and works weekends, I totally get it,” Lytie White said. “I was totally obsessed with my career too, as a hairdresser. I loved it, never wanted to leave it. I did 12-hour days all the time.

“He’s passionate about it, and that’s why he’s so good at it, and I love him for it and admire him for it. And when he walks through the door, it’s done. We sit down to dinner, and if the boys are there, yeah, there’s a lot of football conversations. But he doesn’t bring home the stress. We walk on the beach every chance we get. We try to have family dinners whenever possible, so we both make an effort to carve out quality time. He’s a very devoted family man. He has a very high moral character.”

This is why Dave White is so happy to see the emergence of senior quarterback Matt Viles, a quiet leader and a good kid, just like his coach used to be. This is why Dave White is so happy that so many of the Edison football alumni over the years have come back to coach, like defensive coordinator Rick Justice, offensive line coach Kyle Murphy and linebackers coach Joey Loomis. Offensive line coach Harry Schmidt has been coaching with White since 1984, and the Chargers have also benefited from the guidance of four-time Super Bowl champion Jesse Sapolu, whose son, Roman, is a senior center.

They’re all part of the family.

“It’s a great coaching staff,” White said. “I think it’s important for the players, too, to see ex-players come back and want to help out.”

Justice was a receiver and defensive back for that last Chargers CIF championship squad in 1985. He said even during the 1990s, when Esperanza and Los Alamitos were absolute powerhouses in the Sunset League, he was impressed at how White’s teams would always hold their own.

“I was coaching at Troy back then, and I would get to see one or two Edison games [a year],” Justice said. “I would always compliment Dave on the fact that, even though they were kind of outmanned, he was always in games and playing hard. That’s been the tradition at Edison, standing tall and playing proud.”

Bruce Belcher knows that well, too. The retiring Edison athletic director coached with White until 2000, many of those years with Belcher as the defensive coordinator. He said White’s ability to see everything that’s going on during a play is second to none.

More than that, his friend is “just a tremendous human being,” Belcher said.

“We talk a lot about winning with class and losing with class,” Belcher said. “Dave is the epitome of that.”

White’s sons aren’t doing so bad on the field, either. Matt White has played receiver at Sacramento State. Hunter White is a sophomore linebacker at Boise State, which just finished a 13-0 regular season and is headed to the Fiesta Bowl to play Texas Christian University. Lytie White said her husband went to see several games in Boise early in the season, but there are other options.

“We go down to our good friends’ house, Mike and Carla Higgins of Aliso Viejo, and watch down there,” Lytie White said. “They have [ESPN College Football GamePlan].”

But there is one other White son. Garrett, 12, is a ball boy for the Chargers, and of course, his father would love to coach him, too.

“He wants me to coach him badly, so I’m sure I will,” White said. “That means I have six more years after this year. When he graduates from Edison, I’ll be 60, so I probably will retire from teaching then, but if I’m loving coaching, then I’ll probably still coach. That might be a good time to fade into the sunset, though.”

Until then, expect plenty more Edison wins and more additions to the Chargers family.

It wouldn’t surprise Luke Gane, a senior two-way starter on the offensive and defensive lines.

Luke also had serious illness last year with his aplastic anemia and was in the hospital for months.

Guess who called every night at 9:30?

“He’s not only a coach for football, but a life coach,” Luke said. “He gives us a character speech each day. I think that’s what makes this team really special. We’re truly a family, when it comes down to it.

“[Senior left guard] Sam Saultz and I were just talking about this earlier [Tuesday]. You know what, Coach White totally deserves it. We want to win this for Coach White and the rest of the coaching staff.”