PAGE 14, MCNARY FALL SPORTS PREVIEW, SEPTEMBER 2016
Girl fi nds position on
McNary football team
“ I want to be
close to a
player but not
actually play
the game.”
A BIG BLUE
— Madison White
THANK
YOU!
BECAUSE OF YOU,
WE RAISED
$ 28,000
AT OUR JUNE AUCTION
Proceeds of this auction paid for the new gym fl oor,
2016 -17 athletic scholarships, tournaments
and many other team needs.
KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley
Madison White, the starting left tackle for Claggett Creek last season and now a freshman
at McNary, is serving as the Celtics team manager.
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
When McNary freshmen hit the
football fi eld for their fi rst ever high
school practice, one knew the playbook
better than all the others, and she isn’t
even a player.
As the daughter of a long-time football
coach, Madison White grew up around
the game.
“I was just one of those girls that shied
away from doing girly stuff so I was more
of a tomboy kind of a person,” White said.
“That’s why my dad [McNary junior
varsity offensive line coach Geoff White]
and I really connect because we kind of
have the same look at the game. We sit
down and watch the NFL and college
football all of the time. We throw around
the football. It’s fun.”
As an eighth grader, White played
football last year. She was the starting left
tackle for Claggett Creek.
“It was really great,” White said. “I
had a lot of bonds with a lot of different
people that still play now on the fi eld. We
constantly talk and I talk them through
different plays and stuff because I know
most of these plays pretty well. It’s really
great to play on a football team because
you get a lot of different great relationships
and different aspects of a player on and off
the fi eld.”
White went to spring camp at McNary
but quickly realized high school football
wasn’t for her.
“Me and my dad made the executive
decision for me to shy away from football,”
she said. “It was really hard. I was sitting
on the couch almost in tears. My dad
basically told me there’s a point where
you can’t coach genetics and that was one
of those things that hit me pretty hard.
I’m a girl and I’m not one of those bigger
type of people. There’s some people that
can play and some people that can’t and
I fi nally had to make myself realize that I
couldn’t really do it anymore.”
But White, who plans to play basketball
and golf at McNary, still wanted to be
part of the football team so she talked to
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