White makes dream reality
Third baseman was set on being an Aggie despite TCU success
COLLEGE STATION — Boomer White pined to play baseball for Texas A&M, and steadily sharpened his skills to perhaps one day hear his name called for the Aggies at Blue Bell Park. But White wasn’t on a playground as a little kid with a big bat, or even on the Memorial High diamond.
He was two years into a surging career at TCU when he broke the unorthodox news to Horned Frogs coach Jim Schlossnagle.
“Toughest phone call I’ve ever had to make,” White recalled. “He didn’t see it coming, and there’s no reason he should have.”
Two years ago, White was first team All-Big 12 as a sophomore and even scored a winning run in a 2014 College World Series game. None of it mattered in terms of a transfer, he vowed, though Schlossnagle understandably tried convincing him otherwise.
“A&M was where my heart was,” White said. “I was dead set on being an Aggie. It was a very unique situation – that’s a good way to put it.”
Fresh start
TCU’s loss was A&M’s gain, even if White had to sit out last season under transfer rules. The No. 2 Aggies play host to No. 6 Mississippi in a key three-game series starting Thursday night, and the third baseman White leads the Southeastern Conference with a .416 batting average.
The Aggies (39-12, 18-9) and Rebels (37-14, 18-9) are tied for the SEC West lead. It’s a scenario White dreamed of back at Memorial High, where he was a star catcher and standout running back. A&M already had a handful of young catchers on its roster, however, so White opted for TCU in 2012.
“I didn’t know at that time I wouldn’t catch an inning of college baseball in my life,” White said, shaking his head.
He played in the outfield at TCU, and he has transitioned to third base for the Aggies. Had he made another decision out of Memorial High, he might be trying to decide between running back or slot receiver in a football program like the University of Houston.
White, who’s 5-10 and 195 pounds, rushed for more than 5,000 yards over a superb high school career, but he also saw firsthand that football long term often comes with a price.
“I had a bunch of injuries from football,” said White’s father, Charlie White. “Both shoulders operated on, four knee operations, a broken tibia … We felt his future would be better served in baseball.”
Charlie White had played linebacker at Northwest Missouri and Missouri before a short stint with the Birmingham Stallions of the old USFL in the mid-1980s.
“I saw what football had done to my dad’s body,” Boomer said. “And I didn’t want to go be part of a scout team in college and get beat up, when I could possibly make a career out of baseball.” It was meant to be
The junior is well on his way to doing so, in being the driving force behind the SEC’s top offense. Even his first at-bat for the Aggies was, to use his word, unique. White slugged a home run the first time he heard his name called at Blue Bell Park, in the Aggies’ season opener against Hofstra.
“That was a meant-to-be thing,” A&M coach Rob Childress said of the homer capping White’s winding path from Fort Worth to College Station.
When White crossed home plate, he tried chest-bumping teammate Ryne Birk, but that bit of bravado didn’t play out so well.
“I took a shoulder to the nose pretty hard, and was bleeding everywhere,” White said with a slight smile. “I just covered my nose and went and got it fixed up.”
As for how White first came to love A&M, and even bleed maroon at Blue Bell Park? His next door neighbor and godfather growing up was a former Aggie yell leader, Paul Holladay.
“My Christmas presents from the Holladays were always A&M uniforms,” White said. “And they had A&M (memorabilia) all over their house. They’d also take me to games. All my friends were (Texas) Longhorns fans, but I loved embracing the underdog.
“The Holladays are the best people in the world. And they were Aggies – so I wanted to be an Aggie.”
As for Charles Justin White’s nickname? His father began calling him Boomer when his T-ball coach remarked, “He can really boom the ball.” The SEC has found out as much 15 years later.