NFL star Roddy White gives back to wrestling
Pro Bowl wide receiver came to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in July to kickstart a partnership with USA Wrestling to promote the benefits of wrestling and football By Jason Bryant
The numbers are impressive: Three Pro Bowl appearances, 37 career touchdowns, at least 83 receptions each of the last four seasons and over 6,000 career receiving yards. Those numbers are attributed to Atlanta Falcons wide receiv- er Roddy White.
Another impressive stat comes from White’s career on the wrestling mat – two South Carolina High School state champi- onships wrestling for James Island Charter High School in James Island, S.C. In July, White came to the U.S. Olympic Training Center to
kickstart a partnership with USA Wrestling to promote the bene- fits of wrestling and football. “USA Wrestling is looking to have a football player to wrestler
campaign and we figured he’d be the perfect spokesperson for that,” said USA Wrestling Manager of State Services Tony Black. “People know his football background, but not everyone knows his wrestling background. He’s incredibly proud of his wrestling background and he gives a lot of his success to his wrestling background.”
Growing up, White was in a family of wrestlers. Everyone was involved. He even joked he had planned on being a wrestler, that is, until he sprouted in height and started approaching 200 pounds. He started his career at 112 pounds and finished it at 189, picking up four state wrestling medals and two titles before deciding to take off the wrestling shoes and head to college to play football.
White isn’t your prototypical wideout. He wasn’t the highest recruited prospect, despite being regarded as one of the top high school receivers by
Rivals.com. He didn’t play in a BCS conference. It’s not the typical route to the NFL. What he did was carve out a stellar career at Alabama- Birmingham, a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) program which plays second fiddle to Auburn and Alabama in that state. He’s just over six-feet-tall and is officially listed on the Falcons website at 211 pounds. What sets White apart isn’t just his speed, but the ability to run routes and stifle defenders. Wrestling helped him get there.
“In wrestling, you always have hand-to-hand combat,” explained White. “At the line of scrimmage, going against DB’s, you have to be on balance, you can’t get knocked off our route.
14 USA Wrestler
NFL star wide receiver Roddy White took time out of his busy schedule this summer to visit the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Tom Kimmell photo.
“Coming off the wrestling mat and coming straight to doing that, I had no problems adjusting to it,” said White of his hand- fighting techniques on the gridiron. “That was something special about me coming out of college. They always saw me getting off the bump and run. No one could sit there and bump me at the line of scrimmage, which makes you a great player in the NFL.” During his trip to the Olympic Training Center, White was tempted to get on the mat, being egged on to wrestle by Junior Greco-Roman World Team Member Joel Bauman. “Knowing the importance that wrestling had on him, both as a football player and a person, (White) brought wrestlers from his
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