Chris White recruited Rice Moss, coaches the junior receiver as Syracuse’s receivers coach and has always been known as ‘Coach White.’ Moss admits he still has to call White by the respectful title, although in casual conversation, he called him another name: ‘Lil’ White.’

It wasn’t his nickname when White recruited Moss nor while he’s coached Moss the past two seasons. It became his nickname when White’s older brother, Brian, was named SU’s quarterbacks coach Jan. 20.

Twenty-four days later, Brian was promoted to offensive coordinator. He replaced the outgoing Brian Pariani, who left after one forgettable season. The promotion actually made Brian White Chris’s superior, or at least on the traditional football coaching food chain.

But that’s trivial. What it represented was a reunion of sorts, a younger brother welcoming onto his coaching staff an older brother he’s looked up to for much of his life.

‘Players ask, did you guys fight all the time?’ Chris said. ‘We never fought. He taught me how to pitch, throw a football. He’s been my role model for a long, long time.’

Brian and Chris were the two youngest children of Don White, a college quarterback at Notre Dame and an eventual high school and college coach. There’s something uniquely distinguishable about a coach’s son. It’s an understanding of the profession – the way they think, the way they talk, the way they act.

But they’re also the sons of Maureen, a teacher. Maureen and Don divorced, and the children lived with their mother but remained close to their father. The balance between Don – a teacher and a football coach – and Maureen – who raised four children on a teacher’s salary – was a delicate mix for the White children.

‘When you think of them as football coaches, the knee-jerk reaction is my father because of their passion for the game,’ said Kevin White, Brian and Chris’ brother. ‘But when you really want to know them, you have to look at my mother, too.’

Don was primarily a high school coach in Massachusetts before finishing his career as an assistant coach at Tufts. By the time he was at Tufts, Brian was a quarterback at Harvard. The first of his four children to play college football – Don’s two older children, a daughter Geralyn, and Kevin, didn’t play football – Don realized how enjoyable it was to watch his son. More fun than coaching, if that was possible.

He retired and became a fan of his two youngest sons, both of whom played the game and perhaps more importantly, digested the game. And both were quarterbacks, like their father.

‘They all speak the same language,’ Kevin said. ‘Growing up at our Thanksgiving dinner tables, a lot of the conversation centered around X’s and O’s with Brian and Chris. My dad’s a brilliant football coach. My brothers will tell you Dad knows as much about football as anyone they’ve ever coached with.’

They were bright kids – Brian played for Harvard while Chris was at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Harvard and Colby, both elite New England private schools, aren’t exactly breeding grounds for football coaches.

‘It was hard to tell and it was a little bit disguised with Brian,’ Don said. ‘A lot of people didn’t think a kid going to Harvard and spending four years in Ivy League would end up a football coach. He just always loved the competition.’

But Brian initially followed the prototypical Harvard route. He had a job on Wall Street, but missed football.

‘When you’re 21 and your classmates at Harvard have jobs at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Drexel Burnham, it’s almost what you do,’ Kevin said. ‘But it was grunt work. It was routine. It was administrative processing. It wasn’t intellectual by any stretch. Football for him, he could stretch his mind.’

Brian started off as a graduate assistant in the Bronx with Fordham, before he earned a job at his father’s alma mater.

When Brian interviewed for a graduate assistant spot at Notre Dame, the head coach was the outspoken and successful Lou Holtz. The coach looked at White and said, ‘Why the hell does a good-looking kid going to Harvard want to be a football coach? You’re crazy.’

Brian responded: ‘I look at the clock a lot. Coach, there are no clocks on the football field.’

‘That’s a hell of an answer,’ Holtz said.

Chris caught on as a graduate assistant at Syracuse from 1990-1992, a job that resulted in a passion for SU. After five different coaching stops, Chris returned in 2000. He’s had four different titles in that span from tight ends coach to special teams coordinator to receivers coach to recruiting coordinator.

He’s known as a skilled recruiter, and his players rave about his ability to relate with them. Much of that comes from time alone with his mother.

For Chris’ last three years of high school, his older brothers were in college and he was alone with his mother. It’s why Chris, by Maureen and Kevin’s admission, is a little different than his brothers.

Kevin and Brian, who are one year apart, were always close and were the ones Maureen recalled competing each other. But Chris was the youngest brother, an interesting spot on the fraternal hierarchy. His older brothers looked over him as much as they could, but a lot of Chris’ development came on his own with his mother.

‘He’s wired differently,’ Kevin said. ‘When he says things, he’s very poignant. He lets people speak first and assesses the situation. He’ll sit back and let others make their move.’

Maureen saw him take increased responsibility. Chris was the ‘man of the house,’ and developed a tight bond with his mother. Chris’ college coach told Maureen he was a ‘quiet leader,’ a distinction that she thinks is representative of his personality.

Chris was also able to take a broader scope at his siblings’ development. He was supportive of all of them – Maureen glowed about the way Chris empathized with Kevin when Brian was receiving considerable publicity as a quarterback at Harvard – but because of football, he had an identifiable bond with Brian.

‘He modeled himself on Brian,’ Maureen said. ‘They even wore the same number in all their sports. When (Chris) was a freshman (in high school) when Brian was a senior, people always thought it was pressure. It really wasn’t that way. Chris listened and looked at him like he was the coach. That carried right through when (Brian) went to college.’

They had the similar grades, similar SAT scores, played the same sports. While Kevin admitted Chris was actually the most gifted athlete in the family – he was a three-sport captain in high school – both Brian and Chris were standout athletes and students.

The latter comes natural for children with parents who are teachers. Maureen said she would have pulled Brian and Chris from sports if their grades slipped, but they never did. And now as coaches, Maureen said they haven’t lost their academic emphasis.

Don remembered when Brian left UNLV for Wisconsin, he had promised one of his UNLV players’ mother that the player would graduate. Brian made sure to fulfill the promise, returning to Las Vegas during the summer to ensure it happened.

While at Wisconsin, though, Brian quickly became known as a hot coach. He was named Wisconsin’s co-offensive coordinator in 1999, replacing current Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress, who had left the Badgers to become quarterbacks coach with the Philadelphia Eagles. Brian coached the No. 15 offense in the nation in his first season and was an up-and-coming coordinator.

In 2001, iconic Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez was in heavy consideration for the Miami (Fla.) job, which would have left a void at UW – a potential promotion for Brian. But Alvarez stayed, and Brian remained offensive coordinator. In August 2005, Alvarez announced that he was going to resign at the end of the season to become Wisconsin’s athletic director.

The new head coach was from the staff, but it wasn’t Brian. Alvarez’s successor would be defensive coordinator Bret Bielema.

With staff changes at Wisconsin, Brian looked for opportunities elsewhere. Syracuse quarterbacks coach Major Applewhite had left for the offensive coordinator job at Rice, creating a vacancy. Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson liked Brian and asked Chris about his brother.

‘He asked my input for feelings on him as a coach more than as a brother,’ Chris said. ‘I said he would be the best guy for our situation.’

Brian’s wife, Salli, said there was a similar opportunity available at San Diego State, who has a new coach, Chuck Long, and a new offensive system. The decision, Salli said, was left partly up to their children, Cassidy and Jackson.

While conventional thinking would often favor San Diego to Syracuse, this decision was about family. Cassidy and Jackson wanted to be closer to their cousins.

For Brian, the decision was easy.

‘I wanted to be a part of a program that had a lot of tradition,’ Brian said. ‘And I wanted to coach with my brother.’

The promotion to offensive coordinator shortly after he was named quarterbacks coach was also a sensible decision. Robinson acknowledged the adjustment from the NFL to college was a difficult one for Pariani, who came to SU from the Denver Broncos.

‘I think being that they have been exposed to the college game the way that they have, gives us something that maybe we didn’t have a year ago, especially in the coordinator position,’ Robinson said. ‘We have a pro-style offense, but we do have an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach who I think can maybe have a better feel what these young college football players can handle.’

But it’s the dynamic of working with his brother that Brian has also quickly appreciated. He recently e-mailed Maureen and told her mother of Chris: ‘Be proud of your son. He’s one hell of a coach.’ Brian also called Don to rave about Chris’ coaching acumen.

Likewise, after the first offensive meeting Brian conducted, Chris called Maureen and expressed ‘What a joy’ it was to be coaching with his brother.

The players see it, too. By coincidence, freshman quarterback Andrew Robinson’s final two choices during the recruiting process were Wisconsin and Syracuse. Brian was recruiting Robinson for UW; Chris was handling the recruiting duties for SU.

Robinson said they were both similar in their approaches – genuine and thoughtful. They both asked about Robinson’s relatives with a keen recollection of all their names.

That also traces back to the way they were raised. They’re leaders of college-aged kids, more so than simply coaches who diagram plays and game plan for opposing teams. They can coach, but as the sons of teachers, leadership values were emphasized. All four White children are leaders in their respective jobs.

‘It’s environmental, the concept of nature vs. nurture,’ Kevin said. ‘It was part of our value system and instilled upon us. When you think of professions that give, the teaching profession gives. It’s the gratification of watching someone develop – that’s what both of them to do.

‘Neither one of them are coaches that stop and hang up their whistles at the end of the day. The kids that come in are family members. They become very, very close to their kids.’

It leaves them here, an offensive coordinator and a receivers coach/recruiting coordinator for a program that’s coming off a 1-10 season. To talk to their family is to become immersed in the notion that the program is on the rise and the brothers will be a big part of it.

And they’ll have to be. Considering SU’s offensive woes last season – they finished 115th out of 117 Division I-A teams in total offense – Brian will be under a microscope from SU fans. The players on the field will mostly be recruited by Chris, who’s overseen SU’s recruiting since 2004.

But they’re doing it together, and they wouldn’t want it another way.

‘It’s a special deal to get to do what we’ve been doing here,’ Brian said. ‘We certainly imagined it and hoped for it and wanted it to happen.’

Now it’s happening.

Published on September 1, 2006 at 12:00 pm