Roddy White Q&A

Roddy White was the 27th overall pick in the 2005 draft by the Atlanta Falcons, coming out of University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB). In 2010, White led the NFC in receiving during the regular season with 1,389 yards. He is a 3x Pro-Bowl wide receiver. PNL sat down with him in Dallas at the Super Bowl this year where he shared his recruiting story and provided some tips for receiver training in the off-season. 

PNL: What is your recruiting story?

Roddy White:  Actually, It’s pretty good because it’s ‘01 and you know I think maybe we had five or six guys that were in the top 25 in our receiving class coming out: Roscoe Crosby, Ty Zimmerman, Airese Currie. It was me and maybe like 4 or 5 guys in state that were all in the top 25 wide receivers in the nation coming out that year, and I was kind of like towards the tail end, 25-26, and I actually went to the Shrine Bowl. I went to my recruiting trip to Florida, it went well, thought I was going there- didn’t happen for me. I went to South Carolina on my recruiting trip, thought it would pan out- didn’t happen for me. Then I went down to Clemson, too, on my recruiting trip. I thought I was going to be a Tiger- didn’t happen for me- and low and behold I got a scholarship offer from UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham). My coach knew the offensive line coach down there and they linked up. He said to my family “Ok we’ll sign him, we’ll give him a scholarship tomorrow” and my coach was like “Alright but we don’t know if he’s going to qualify”. I was having qualifying issues at that time and I took the SAT maybe eight times already. It wasn’t going well for me. I mean, I was improving and learning how to take the test, so it gradually got better, and my score gradually went up. So, eventually I had a letter and everyone wanted me to go the JUCO route, they wanted me to go to junior college and sign my letters over there, but I didn’t want to go to Kansas. That was my option. So I was like, “I’ll get the test done”. Just going through that process, it was kind of tough for me because I wanted to go to a big school. I wanted to play in the SEC, I wanted to play in the ACC, but UAB stuck with me the entire time. They said, “When you pass that test you can sign your letter of intent and we will have a scholarship right here for you.” After signing day, I got my test scores back and I scored high enough to get into college, and UAB gave me a scholarship offer. They said, “We will be ready when you fax in the letter,” I faxed in my letter because other schools had backed away from me but they just stuck there the whole time. The rest is history.

PNL: How was your confidence affected when certain schools did not offer?

Roddy White:  It really didn’t affect my confidence because I had played around those guys during All Star games, so I knew where my talent level was. In certain systems and certain things, players excel and I was kind of like the late bloomer. I wasn’t right hitting my peak right then at high school. I knew I had a window of opportunity. I just had to max out my talent. I know it took me a little bit longer to develop into the player that I am today, coming straight out of high school. I just think that in certain situations and evaluating talent, you have to look at somebody’s upside and what they can bring to the table, not right now, but maybe two or three years down the road.

PNL: How do you to train in the offseason?

Roddy White: Basically in the offseason, I go down to Alabama and I have my own trainer. We just do a lot of cone drills and foot drills. Just basically at the wide receiver position, you need to get in and out of breaks. Most of the time when you’re an athlete and you play the receiver position, it’s not that hard to get off a bump and run or to run 10 yards out and things like that, but to get in and out of comebacks and in’s and curls, you have to do a lot of cone drills. Your feet help you get open at all levels. That’s the most important part to me; I do a lot of working with that. You can naturally lift weights and get stronger and bigger and faster but you have to have great feet to play the wide receiver position.