FCA a labor of love for White

By Dave Morrison
Sports Editor

May 23, 2009 11:26 pm

— Mike White is anything if not persistent.
When legendary prep coach Dave Barksdale was ringing up state title after state title (1990-92-93-97-98) at Woodrow Wilson, White, director of the Southern West Virginia Fellowship of Christian Athletes, asked if the coach could lend a hand to the cause.
“I had a patented response,” Barksdale said. “I told him I would be glad to do it when I retired.”
A few years later, when Barksdale became an assistant coach at Mountain State University, White again approached Barksdale.
And White got the patented response.
Ever persistent, White approached Barksdale three years ago and said the FCA was going to do a trip to Israel and he was looking for a coach to accompany the group to teach basketball on the West Bank at several FCA-sponsored camps.
Now Barksdale is regarded as one of the top teachers of the game in the state, if not this part of the country.
So ...
This time, White got a different response.
“I told him I would think about it,” Barksdale recalled.
Something in the coach was at work. He wanted to go, but not as he was at the time.
“If I was going to go, I couldn’t be a hypocrite,” said the coach, who was a Christian and grew up in the church and was baptized at age 12.
“I couldn’t go and represent the FCA ... not the way I was. I had to get my priorities straight. The Bible says, ‘You shall have no other Gods before Me.’ I had several burdens at the time. Everyone who knows me knows that I had always put basketball first. And that was wrong. It still means a lot to me, but basketball is not No. 1.”
Barksdale said his new priority list is thus: God, family and basketball.
In fact, he has given his own personal testimony several times.
It is such personal testimonies that invigorate White, who has headed up the area FCA the past 12 years.
“You know, we do a lot of things,” White said. “We have our golf tournament. We have a lot of different programs. But when you see a person change through the Lord, to accept Jesus, well, that’s the really special times. Just like with coach.”
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And there are thousands of stories — about 7,000 to be close to exact — in the 12 years the FCA has been in the area.
That is the number of members who have personally accepted Jesus, according to White.
“I remember one time we were at a Marsh Fork football practice, giving a talk,” White said. “There was a kid there, kind of a rough kid. Well, he got saved right there on the field. About six, seven years later, I ran into him at an event and he was heading up a youth group.”
White estimates as many has 400,000 kids in the area have attended an FCA event or activity — with the peak being 70,000 one year.
There are 48 Huddles, or school groups, at area middle schools, high schools and colleges in southern West Virginia, including Mountain State, WVU Tech, Concord and Bluefield State.
“Game Days are the big thing we do,” White said. “We take trips to professional or college games. We’ve done Charlotte Bobcats games in the past and West Virginia and Marshall football and basketball games.
“The neat thing about that is we usually have a player come out and give his own personal testimony, White said. “We had Derek Anderson after a Bobcats game. At WVU basketball games we’ve had Alex Ruoff and Da’Sean Butler. That is really impacting on a kid.”
Former WVU and Marshall football coaches Don Nehlen and Bob Pruett have been very supportive of the FCA, both at their former schools and here in southern West Virginia.
The FCA is doing a football camp June 30 at Concord University with former Pittsburgh Steeler Jon Kolb and former WVU great and Indianapolis Colt Steve Grant.
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White himself has a testimony.
He remembers working in the trucking industry and losing his job.
At that traumatic time, White turned to Jesus.
“You know, I ended up with a better job than the one I had,” White said. “That’s when I got involved with the FCA.
“Then this job came open and people were telling me I should take it. I went to the Lord and told him, ‘God, you gave me this great job (in the trucking industry.) And I’m giving it back to you. Just tell me which way I should go.”
He left the trucking industry and started the FCA group from square one.
“Sure, I was scared,” White said of the change. “But I knew the Lord was pointing me in the right direction, so things would be fine.”
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White said that, contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be an athlete to be a member of the FCA.
“It is a sports-based ministry,” White said. “But you don’t have to be an athlete. If you like sports, you’re qualified.”
As is the case with most things these days, the economy is having an effect on the FCA’s ministry in the area.
“We’re grassroots-funded,” White said. “We don’t get any assistance from the state or national office. Our office is funded by the generous donations of people who believe in what we are doing.”
Barksdale is not going to the Middle East with the FCA next month but MSU will be represented by sophomore Josh Wamsley as well as WVU Tech’s Darryl Slack.
Anyone wishing to make a contribution to the local FCA chapter can contact White at P.O. Box 840, Beckley, 25802, go online at www.wvfca.org or call the FCA office at 304-253-2858.