JAMES WHITE
LIFE MEMBER BIOGRAPHY - 1985

James White and gymnastics at San Angelo High School are closely linked; there was no competition programs for kids in San Angelo at the time James White stepped in at John Glenn Junior High in 1966. He soon had kids gathered around, working hard. He became the San Angelo School District’s gymnastics specialist at the beginning of the 1968-69 school year.

“My first group of gymnasts included gymnasts who did a good job at any task offered,” her recalled in 1986. Don Goforth, Cheryl Medley Jarrett, Joe Martinez, Carol Bouligny York, Mike Lowe, Bart Gunter, Raul Deanda, Ricky Aguirre, Dennis McIntyre and Barbara Boster. Many of them became All State and All American athletes in the following years.

One of the biggest problems was the training facility. For several years the team worked at Glenn for part of the year and then moved to Central High for the remainder of the season. Equipment was damaged, mats were cut. There was friction between gymnastics and other sports. Sounds familiar to anyone from a public school background.

So these program builders, these San Angelo pioneers, parents, students, Coach White, embarked on an ambitious program to convince the San Angelo Schools to build a gymnastics training center. And they succeeded. White remembered,... “the program had become too successful to be cast aside and abandoned, so they decided to build us a separate…facility. Also included were travel budgets, an equipment maintenance fund. Gymnastics for boys and girls was added as official parts of the high school athletic program.”

In the twenty years at San Angelo before he retired in 1990, James won many boys state championships, including the 1974, 1976, 1978, and 1983 titles. The 1983 team was the 1983 National High School Championship Team Score winners and James was the National Coach of the year. He coached more than 100 All American athletes in his career and coached both men and women during the first fifteen years at San Angelo. He was GAT Life Member in 1985 and a Life Member of the Texas High School Gymnastics Coaches Association in 1990.

The amazing story of gymnastics at San Angelo keeps coming back to a determined, dedicated, stubborn man named James White. The splendid facilities at Central, and the admiration of hundreds of athletes, are his monument. His athletes have formed a scholarship fund in his honor, presenting an annual award to an outstanding athlete. Always a fighter, right to the last, James passed away in July, 1997.

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