Darryl White’s transition from a tearaway youth to Territory role model was a sporting success

Alice Springs born Darryl White is one of the Northern Territory’s most recognisable sportspeople, but it was not always like that for the Brisbane Lions champion

Darryl White’s AFL career produced 268 games, three premiership medallions and a lifetime of respect and courage for his achievements.

DARRYL White is still one of Territory sport’s most recognisable sportsmen, 16 years after retiring as a player with the Brisbane Lions.

White’s 268 AFL games and three premierships with the great Brisbane sides of the early noughties also mean he is one of Central Australia’s greatest sporting products.

But it was not always like that for a kid from the Red Centre.

White, who celebrated his 48th birthday yesterday, said Australian football and his other great sporting love, basketball, gave him an avenue to develop as a person.

“Playing sport, going to primary school which I loved and didn’t miss a day, they were good days when I was very young,’’ he said.

“But once you get to high school that changes a bit. You start wagging, hanging out with friends, girls come into it and you find the taste of alcohol.

“Then there are the discos and parties, all things that are new to a 15 or 16-year-old teenager trying to experience all that stuff.

“Then I started to get into a bit of crime, stealing chocolate bars, clothes and CD’s from shops, small-time stuff that got a bit worse with break and enters and cars.

“I was sentenced to 16 months in Longmore Juvenile Detention Centre in Perth but got out after two and a half months on good behaviour just when I was turning 17.

I was lucky enough to come back to the Territory and get an opportunity to play in the Teal Cup and for Alice against Glenelg in 1991 with the McAdams and a lot of other Alice Springs legends.’’

The AFL was his greatest stage, breaking record after record as a big marking, hard running utility with Brisbane, despite a rocky start when as a rookie he told then Bears coach Robert Walls to call him in a couple of weeks.

“No one really knew if they were going to make it back in those days,’’ he said. “There was no direct pathway like now where you can go through the under-18 program and start through the 16s at the nationals.

“You’re on notice from a lot of clubs straight away, some through their own academies like Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

“Mago (Michael McLean) was the first to go straight to the AFL from Darwin and I was the same from Alice Springs about a decade later after years of Territory players having to go through the WAFL or SANFL.’’

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