Mike White, a big Notre Dame fan growing up, puts his Georgia team up against the Irish
Mike White, who started at guard for Ole Miss before making his living as a college basketball head coach at Louisiana Tech, Florida and now Georgia, grew up wanting to play for Notre Dame.
As a quarterback.
Just like Tony Rice and Rick Mirer.
“Those guys were studs,” said White, in his first season with the Bulldogs. “I was locked into Notre Dame football as a kid.”
In his 382nd game as a head coach, White will finally go up against Notre Dame for the first time Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at State Farm Arena in Atlanta in a Holiday Hoopsgiving game. It’s a matchup of 7-3 teams.
On the other bench will be Mike Brey, hired by Kevin White, Mike’s father, in 2000 when he was Notre Dame’s athletic director after serving in that role at Arizona State and before he became Duke AD.
“Arguably his greatest hire,” White said of Brey, now in his 23rd season in South Bend. “I’m not eager to play Mike Brey. I don’t know who is. Just a program I’ve got a ton of respect for.”
Growing up Irish Catholic in the Midwest, rooting for Notre Dame came easy for White,
In second grade when he lived in Dubuque Iowa, a Notre Dame T-shirt that said Class of 1999 with a big leprechaun on it was in his Christmas stocking.
White played football until he moved from Orno, Maine to New Orleans and attended Jesuit High School.
“I learned quickly if you’re the third-team freshman quarterback, you probably need to focus on another sport,” White said.
That was basketball. White hoped to get a chance to go to Notre Dame on scholarship and got some recruiting attention from assistant Jimmy Black who sent letters, but it was his two brothers who graduated from the school.
Danny, now Tennessee's athletic director, played for the Irish from 2000-02 as a walk-on after transferring from Towson. Brian, now the Florida Atlantic athletic director, graduated from there in 2006.
Notre Dame went 24-11 last year and reached its first NCAA tournament since 2017.
Brey has taken Notre Dame to 13 NCAA tournaments including back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2015 and 2016.
.The Fighting Irish play in the ACC, making this the Bulldogs third game against a team from that conference this season. Georgia lost road games at Wake Forest 81-71 and Georgia Tech 79-77.
“We kind of missed out on a great opportunity,” center Frank Anselem said. “It’s a time to bounce back. Notre Dame, we get them right in Atlanta. We feel like it’s a home game for us and we’ve just got to go in there and kick butt.”
The Bulldogs will have had 12 days since that loss to the Yellow Jackets when it was up by four and had the ball with less than 80 seconds to go, but White called it “arguably our best performance. I thought Georgia Tech played well, too.”
Now with final exams done, Georgia players can focus on just basketball the next few weeks.
The team “looked really sharp,” in practice Wednesday, White said, “probably as good as we’ve been.”
After having players in and out of the lineup due to injuries and COVID in recent weeks, the Bulldogs are back to full strength for now.
“We need everybody on our team to be successful,” said guard Kario Oquendo who dealt with a contusion after banging knees with Anselem in practice.
White said Notre Dame has good size with every starter at least 6-foot-4 and leading scorer 6-10 Nate Laszewski averaging 14.9 points per game. The Irish play at a deliberate pace (it’s 350th in the nation in fastbreak points), shoot well (47.2 FG%) and lean heavily on a starting lineup that averages at least 33 minutes each .
Notre Dame has an 18-point home win against Michigan State on Nov. 30, but has lost two of its last three, at home to Syracuse by 1 and Marquette by 15.
“I think Georgia,” Brey said after the loss to Marquette Sunday, “becomes really important.”
White said his parents are expected at the game in Atlanta. This time, Kevin White, who was Notre Dame athletic director from 2000-2008 and is now retired from his AD days, will have a reason to pull for the team playing against Brey and the Irish.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Mike White wanted to play for Notre Dame. Now he'll coach vs. Irish
