I’ve been bad at blogging. My goal after football season was to publish once a week, and I had done well since November. The last month or so, I have completely failed. I do think I have a good reason, or at least an excuse, so I thought I would write about that today. It…

January 31, 2021 Gabe, Howard, Harvey, and I met to run some rocks. The wind chill was brutal and Harvey and I joked in the parking lot about how smart we were to leave our doors on for today. We decided to run Gatekeepers and then Meatgrinder and Dirty Little Secret. Once headed up Reynolds…

“I’m sure glad I have a brand new, 10” LED lightbar sitting on my workbench,” I grumbled out loud to myself. I knew it was bright as hell because I had hooked it up once to my Jeep’s battery, and I remembered how blindingly bright it had been, which, at the moment, would have been…

January 1, 2021 Thirty-one rigs met at Albertson’s in Emmett for a High Desert Off Road Hangover Run. We went up Sheep Creek and cut over to 2nd Fork. Unfortunately, the entire way had been plowed, so it was little more than a dirt road drive. Since Howard, Gabe, and Harvey were going, I took…

All week long, I have been ruminating on the events in Washington, D. C. and my reactions to it. I don’t want to write about that. I want to write about why I’m a football coach. Football is the ultimate team sport. It takes lots of little guys, big guys, slow guys, fast guys, and…

I had an excellent year off road. I keep a journal and track when, where, and with whom I go wheeling. At the end of the year, I count up and remember my off road year in review. Here are the highlights. No names have been changed to protect the innocent. Some dates and runs…

Look, we both knew this was coming. It just isn’t working out. 2020, you’re a bad girlfriend. 2020, it started off fine. I envisioned our relationship as some form of the 1920s. I was especially looking forward to flappers, fashion, and speakeasies. The Roaring 2020’s sounded cool and I was ready to Jay Gatsby myself into…

These are truths I have learned as a 23 year Varsity football coach. ALL decisions — every decision, every time — is made with the following decision-making paradigm: Program first, Players second, Coaches third. There is no exception to this rule. Parents have NO idea how much time high school football coaches spend trying to help their sons. And…

I remember sitting in a conference room in a random Best Western hotel somewhere outside of Portland, Oregon. The scratchy, fabric chairs were arranged in rows before a lectern. The team lounged around, listening to coaches review the game plan before heading to our rooms for bed check. Jeff Olson, our head coach, was talking…

Pivot has become the educational buzz word of 2020.  I hate it. When I think of a pivot, I think of a center pivot in the field, providing water for agriculture. It’s a nice, solid, timed mechanism that moves in a predictable arc on a schedule, doing its job. Tuesday at 12:30, I found out…

Brock came up to me after class, the way students do when they have something they want to say to a teacher. “Dad, thanks, that was really inspiring.” “Thanks, but explain. Which part? What are you talking about?” “When you talked about the AP Test and how we were going to score well on it…

Winning, at anything, is not normal. There can only be one winner from all the teams who start. This seems like a simple concept, but the more I think about it, the more it matters. Winning is not the status quo. Of all the teams in a conference, only one will win the conference. Only…

Drinking my coffee Birch trees swaying in the wind A lonely leaf falls

The Last Week of July Nathan White Aug 2 · 7 min read Leaving the pavement for a week of dirt (Photo by the author) Every year, for almost all of my life, I have had plans for the last week of July. Nothing gets scheduled during this time. Nothing gets talked about or planned for this time….

(Photo by Lynette White) Lava rocks sound different than other rocks under your tires. I have put my Jeep tires on lots of rocks in lots of places, but Rim Butte OHV Park has rocks that sound almost hollow. When they roll out from under you unexpectedly, they sound like they have space inside of…

In Cocktail, a great ‘80s movie, Tom Cruise’s character, Brian, has one of the greatest movie lines ever. After a break-up, he states “Jesus, everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end.” As I finished watching The Last Dance on ESPN, I was reminded of how true this quote was to the end of the Bulls dynasty. It had…

My sophomore year of college, I rented a two-bedroom apartment for the school year. Right before the year started, I had a roommate back out on me. I went to my football coaches and asked if they knew anybody who needed a room because I couldn’t afford the apartment on my own. They hooked me…

Lynette and I wanted to go camping. Usually, we have had several good camping adventures by Memorial Day of any given year, but this year has been different, to say the least. With some time off, we decided on going fishing and quadding in central Idaho.

This week, Eagle High School delivered 2020 Senior Graduation yard signs to over 500 seniors. It was a tremendous event and I’m glad that I volunteered to do it. This year has been as bad as it could be and I needed a feel-good event like this to help get past the negativity. I had…

78 My dad turned 78 on May 11. Every year, on Mother’s Day weekend, my dad and a group go to Sourdough Campground and do a trail cleanup. I have never gone. I live about 10 hours from Sourdough Campground and May is a busy time teaching and coaching football. I usually go to Sourdough…