Harold White was a coach for South Carolina’s football team in 1971 and 1972. He was hired by Paul Dietzel as a graduate assistant and never rose to a full-time position with the football team.
Everyone called him “Coach” for the rest of his life.
“He was not just a coach for football but a coach for life,” said Langston Moore, a defensive lineman for the Gamecocks from 1999-2002.
White was USC’s first African-American coach in any sport, but his greatest impact on the school and on hundreds of its athletes came after he left that role to become an academic advisor for the team and then build from scratch the athletic department’s academic support department.