JUDO CHAMP LEAVES LEGACY

JUDO CHAMP LEAVES LEGACY
By DENNIS TAYLOR
Herald Staff Writer

His peers in international judo dubbed him "The Giant Killer," a nickname Leo White, a Seaside native, earned by defeating every world champion and every Olympic champion from the 1980s forward.
When French world champion Stephane Traineau lost his second-round match to White at the '92 Olympics in Barcelona, he ripped off his black belt, hurled it to the mat and stormed away.
Traineau shouldn't have felt surprised. Eight years earlier, at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, White's first-round opponent at the Olympics was Belgian superstar Robert van der Walle, the reigning world champion and defending gold medalist. He won that match, too.
White, an alumnus of Monterey High (Class of '75) who also played one year of linebacker at Monterey Peninsula College, never won an Olympic medal -- he lost his bronze-medal match in Barcelona -- but he is certifiably the greatest American judo athlete in the history of the sport.
Between 1976 and 1998, he won gold at the U.S. Nationals an all-time record 14 times (all but one in the 95-kilogram weight division) -- the last of which came after a two-year retirement when the then 40-year old became the oldest U.S. champion ever.
White also won the World Military Championships four times and the U.S. Open three, plus a gold, two silvers and five bronze medals at the Pan-American Games. In 1999, he won the World Masters Championship at age 41.
"One on one, I could fight the best guy in the world and beat him in the first or second round of a tournament," says White, who now lives in Lilburn, Ga. "But in reality, I was basically a hobby athlete -- I'd work all day, then train at night -- and I was competing against people from all over the world who trained for the sport full-time. By the third or fourth round, my strength would go away."
White learned on Sept. 1 that he has been chosen Team Leader -- essentially a coach with additional administrative duties -- for Team USA for the next Pan-Am Games and the 2008 Olympics.
The coaching role isn't new to him (he operates two separate judo clubs in Atlanta), but it doesn't come easy.
"What I hear all the time from referees, my other coaches and my athletes is, 'Leo, settle down!' Sitting in the coach's chair is probably the toughest thing I've ever done," he says with a laugh. "When you're out there fighting, you get into a zone and you learn to use your emotions as fuel. As a coach, you have to learn to contain those emotions and interact."
White grew up on Wanda Avenue in Seaside, attending school at Highland Elementary, Del Rey Woods, Fremont Junior High and Monterey High, where many of his friends -- including future NFL stars Ron Johnson, Milt Carter and Herman Edwards -- were football players.
Choosing at an early age to associate with serious athletes, he says, is one reason he eventually ascended to a world-class level in his own sport. Equally important, though, was the role of his first judo instructor, Bernard Baptiste, who owned and operated the Monterey Judo and Jiu-Jitsu Academy on Hoffman Avenue.
"I was an aggressive kid, and I was an only child," he says. "That judo academy is where I learned to deal with the world. Bernard Baptiste was a man who didn't take any mess from anybody, and he became a very big father figure in my life. I'm 49 and I still call him 'sensei' (meaning 'instructor' or 'professor'), which is the ultimate title of respect in martial arts."
Baptiste, now 86 and five years retired from his academy, regards White as the prized student from a school that produced 27 junior national champions, five senior national champs, three U.S. high school champs, and one other Olympian, Ellen Wilson of Salinas.
"Leo was 9 years old -- just a little runt -- when his father (Leo White Sr.) brought him to me," Baptiste recalls. "He'd ride his bicycle from Seaside to New Monterey every day, six days a week, and he never, ever missed a class. He believed in the philosophies I taught, and he had a drive you wouldn't believe."
After six months of training, Baptiste took his young pupil to his first-ever junior national tournament. White brought home the gold medal. He went on to win nationals at the intermediate and high school levels, too, and in 1976 was selected to compete with Team USA at the Pan American Championships. Only 19 years old, he won gold in the open division and silver in the 95-kg weight class.
He also won a full-ride college scholarship to compete at Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., where White, son of a retired U.S. Army sergeant, became involved in the ROTC program.
He entered the army as a second lieutenant and continued to blossom in judo, winning the World Military Games in 1981, '82, '84 and '87. In 1983, when we won gold at the U.S. Open and the U.S. Nationals, and bronze at the Pan American Games, White was named U.S. Military Athlete of the Year for all sports.
He made the U.S. Olympic Team in '84, drawing van der Walle, the world champion and defending gold medalist, for his first-round match.
"Robert van der Walle was literally my idol. In the sport of judo, he was the man," White says. "The arena was packed, people were yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs during my match, and I never heard a thing. All I was thinking about was survival."
White and his legendary opponent fought ferociously for five minutes. The Seaside native won a close decision.
"I came off the mat, looked into the stands, and the first person I saw, in a crowd of more than 7,000 people, was Sensei Baptiste," he says. "I'd had no idea beforehand where he was sitting, but his face was the first one I saw. Isn't that something? And I could hear the crowd chanting, 'USA! USA!' as I was walking away."
White won his second match, too, defeating an opponent from Kuwait, but lost in the third round to the Olympian from Iceland.
"The lesson I took away from my first Olympics was not to allow myself get overwhelmed by the circumstance and the pageantry," he says. "You've got to go out there and play your game."
His next shot came eight years later, in 1992, when he competed with an injury.
"Three weeks earlier, at the Pan Am Games, I'd had three of my fingers pulled all the way back to my wrist. They were broken," White says. "They thought about replacing me on the team, but I took some cortisone shots, and a lot of other treatment, and wound up going."
With his left hand all but useless, he defeated an Egyptian Olympian in his opening match, then drew Traineau, the world champion from France, in the second round. Once again, Baptiste was watching his former student from the bleachers.
"Before the match, I told Leo, 'Don't be afraid of him. Go after this guy,'" Baptiste said. "As I was watching the match, I could see that (Traineau) was making mistakes that Leo wasn't recognizing, so I started giving him little signs to let him know what to do. He did it, and darned if he didn't beat that guy.
"When the match was over, (Traineau) was such a poor loser that he took his black belt off, threw it on the mat and walked off. I've never seen such poor sportsmanship."
White continued to win, all the way to the medal round, where he lost a decision for the bronze to an athlete from the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, his military career continued. Between the service and judo competitions, he visited almost every continent in the globe.
"I actually retired from the sport for 15 months in 1986 because I was in South Korea, a company commander with the second infantry division in the DMZ," says White, who retired from the service as a captain. "We were one of the most-forward deployed units -- we could literally look through the fence at the North Korean army -- and all we did was train. I was probably in better shape then than at any time in my life."
His successes in judo also have earned invitations to the White House, where he's met President Clinton, both Bushes, and legendary entertainer Johnny Carson, among others.
"I'm really looking forward to is going back to the White House after the Olympics in 2008," says White, who expects the next U.S. Olympic Team to feature at least four judo athletes with medal potential.
He enjoys living near Atlanta with his wife, Jacqueline, whom he married in 1991, his 8-year-old son, Leo Edward, already an orange belt in judo, and his mother, Winnifred, who relocated from Seaside four years ago after White's dad died. But White says he returns to the Monterey Peninsula at least once a year to visit lifelong chums, including Eugene Palmer, his best friend since childhood.
He also insists that his competitive career at the elite level is far from over.
"I was the oldest man ever to win nationals at 40, and I plan to try to win it again next year, at 50," White says. "And my 60th birthday... that would be another milestone, wouldn't it? God willing, I'll come out of retirement for that one, too."
Leo's legacy Leo White's accomplishments in international judo competition. U.S. Nationals: Gold medalist, 95kg weight class in 1977, '81-85, '89, '90, '92-95 and '98; gold medalist, 86kg weight class, 1979; silver medalist, 95kg weight class, 1991; bronze medalist, 95kg weight class, 1987; U.S. Open: Gold medalist, 95kg weight class, 1982-83 and '87; World Military Games: Gold medalist, 95kg weight class, 1981-82, '84 and '87; bronze medalist, 95kg weight class, 1980); Pan American Games: Gold medalist, Open division, 1976; silver medalist, 95kg weight class, 1976 and 1991; bronze medalist, 95kg weight class, 1979, '87-88 and '90. Miscellaneous: Silver medalist, Open division, German Open, 1984; bronze medalist, Dutch Open, 95kg weight class, 1982; bronze medalist, 95kg weight class, Belgium Open, 1984; bronze medalist, Sunkop Tournament, 1987.

Fonte: Monterey County Herald - Monterey, CA, USA - http://www.montereyherald.com/