NFL News

Sammy White Joining Black College Football Hall of Fame

Sammy White Joining Black College Football Hall of Fame


The Offensive Rookie of the Year award included a gray Ford Granada that remained in the family into the early 1990s.

“It hung in this family a long time,” White laughed. “It was pushed down from one brother to another and down to my baby sister.”

White did, too, with the Vikings, but only after an initial hiccup. The receiver was so focused on trying to defeat NFL defensive backs that he experienced lapses when it came time to secure catches.

He might be more thankful for the NFL formerly having six preseason games than anyone else. The exhibition schedule — and Head Coach Bud Grant — gave him numerous opportunities. Grant started White in the sixth preseason game. The receiver suffered a couple of more drops, but Grant put the rookie back in late, and White scored the game-winner.

“I was having great practices back then, but we’d get in the game and I’d set my mind somewhere else, ‘These are professional defensive backs. How am I going to get open?’ I would concentrate on getting open so much that I lost my other focus, which was the big one, to catch the ball,” White said. “Once I caught that winning touchdown, I felt good and that was all she wrote.”

Bess, Young and Vikings Ring of Honor safety Joey Browner all mentioned how great White was at running routes.

“I’m talking about, man, somebody who will turn you around in circles if you’re not careful,” Bess said. “A very astute guy, very knowledgeable of the game.

“If he beat you on a route, he would kind of tell you what you didn’t do as a defensive back,” Bess added. “If he tells you how to cover him, he’s still going to beat you because that’s how he was. ‘OK, Sammy, you gave me all that, and you’re still going to beat me on the route? Dang it! I thought I could cover that to the T, and you do something different in the route.”

White chalked up his success to “a lot of practice and a lot of imagination.”

“Growing up, I watched people like Paul Warfield. I’d sit down and watch and just start daydreaming and…

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