Tom White thought he was done coaching basketball following the 2020-21 season.
After all, he had spent 26 years leading De La Salle’s boys program and winning 417 games over his career.
But when the Garfield Ridge resident was asked to coach the Special Olympics Unified team consisting of Meteor student-athletes as well as students from the neighboring Southside Occupational Academy located a mile north of De La Salle on Chicago’s South Side, White’s response was a decisive yes.
A conversation with Megan Reaska, the Director of Special Olympics Illinois’ Unified Champion Schools Region D, also shaped his decision.
“I like doing good things for these kids,” White said. “(They) had the determination to come here, plan this and talk to us about this. They asked me, ‘Do you want to coach?’ Then when I started going through this, I was like, ‘OK, who do we have to talk to?’ They had already taken care of their business.
“It was a matter of us saying yes and getting certified by the Special Olympics. The kids were into it and they wanted to do it. I think they saw other kids doing it and they wanted to participate. This was a chance to win hardware, to be honest with you.”
Which the Meteors did for a third consecutive time in March at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On Aug. 6, there was a reception and ceremony held at a South Side pizzeria where the athletes and coaches received their state championship rings.
“It’s hard to do anything three in a row,” White said. “Our Unified De La Salle kids this year were great leaders and big-time athletes, but none of them were basketball players. Our Special Olympics kids carried us this year and a little bit last year. It’s about working with these kids and touching their hearts and making sure they have something.
“It touches my heart and I feel good about it. Who am I? I was blessed to be on that floor (both two and three years ago). In March, I was on the same floor in the same gym with different kids. And what it gives our (De La Salle) athletes is off the charts. They got a chance to be humbled and they got a chance to see how blessed they are.”
While White did receive a ring for his efforts, returning to the bench wasn’t just an opportunity to pick up a coach’s clipboard again or teach his players how to run the three-across inbounds play that was appealing. It was something much more significant.
This was a chance to honor the memory of White’s beloved nephew Mikey. He was a decorated Special Olympics athlete who died on July 12, 2019 at the age of 30. Mikey was the son of White’s brother Mike and his sister-in-law Dawn.
“I was done (coaching),” White said. “I thought I’d begin preparing for the next part of my life. Do I miss the IHSA varsity basketball? No, I don’t miss that one bit. This was a fix for me. It’s fun having those competitive personalities around. Those Special Olympics kids collect medals. They collect them.
“The amount of medals that Mikey had and how he had them laid out in specific orders, they meant something to him. When I saw how much care he took with them, that was something that affected me a little bit.”
So as the Meteors defeated Ray Graham/St. Ignatius 53-30 to win the Special Olympics Illinois Division II title on March 15, there was one person specifically in mind for White.
“Mikey was 100 percent inspirational to me,” White said. “This kid played floor hockey, he bowled, he did all these sports to accumulate medals. When he got the bronze medal, he wasn’t as happy as when he got the gold or the silver medal. He would say, ‘Hey, Uncle Tom. Do you want to see my medals?’ And I would say, ‘Yeah. Let me see. What’d you get?’
“And he would say, ‘Yeah, I got two.’ And he’d go and get them and show them off. That’s the type of special thing that turns that population on. If this helps those kids with disabilities, heck, I can do that. I can help with that.”