Joseph "New New" Adkins
May 19, 2009
Irene Marie Deroche Lajaunie
May 22, 2009
Houma has seen several professional sports teams come to town since the end of World War II only for them to disappear within a few years.
There is one man that has a personal connection with all of the city’s pro franchises over the past 60 years.
Dr. Rory White, chiropractor, sports trainer, race car driver and team doctor for the Houma Conquerors indoor football team is thoroughly interwoven into the history of sports in this city.
In fact, professional baseball was the reason his father, Milton, arrived and settled in Houma.
“My dad came here in 1948 and played third base for the old Houma Indians,” White explained. “They were part of the Class D Evangeline League and won two championships in 1948 and 1949.”
White, 50, has been the team doctor for Houma’s last three minor league pro sports teams – the Houma Hawks baseball club in 2003, the Bayou Bucks of the National Indoor Football League from 2003-04, and the Conquerors of the Southern Indoor Football League, currently playing at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.
Over the years, he has collected signed souvenirs from his time with each team – a bat from the Hawks’ first practice, a Bucks team photo and a football from the Conquerors’ first tryout.
But being a part of the exciting and family-friendly entertainment that sports provide is the biggest reason White has gotten involved.
“The fans in Houma have supported all the past teams, and I hope they do the same for the Conquerors,” he said. “We need more family-oriented things in Houma. They’re great for the community and generate a lot of money. The economic impact was tremendous with all the teams.”
White joined the Hawks as team doctor because he knew their coach Gus Brown (current baseball coach at Ellender Memorial High School) from training some of his athletes.
Despite the insignia on their jerseys, the Hawks rarely played a game in Houma.
“They were the Houma team that played in Morgan City,” White recalled. “The Hawks and the (Terrebonne) parish government had some issues with insurance that could never be resolved. So the parish wouldn’t let them use the recreational fields.”
The Hawks dissolved after one year.
In 2002, he was hired as the team doctor for the Bucks, but was replaced by a group of local physicians before the season began.
“That first year, (the Bucks) had so many injuries, they decided to hire me the following year,” White claimed. “We cut the injury rate from 9 or 10 a game to 2 or 3 the last two years.”
White said most sports injuries are caused by muscle imbalances on contact. While he can’t prevent contact because of the nature of football, he believes he can prevent muscle imbalances in his players
A proper warmup is key. Most people don’t warm up correctly because they overstretch, according to White. Comparing a muscle ligament to a rubber band, he said if you stretch it out too long, it doesn’t return to the proper position.
“It’s a lot better to fill those muscles with blood, get them working properly through the techniques I use,” he said. “I try to get athletes to emulate the movements they’re going to be doing in the actual game. It prevents shortening the muscle.”
While indoor football players may not earn as much attention and money as their NFL counterparts, White suggested the injury rate is greater.
“There’s not a lot of difference between these guys and the NFL players,” he said. “You have the same body mass confined in a small space, and things tend to break a lot for these guys.
“That’s the thing with indoor football – there’s no out of bounds,” White added. “Injuries are higher in this sport than the NFL because of the wall.”
Growing up in Houma, White was an avid sports fan.
As a teen in the 1970s, he got into drag racing and spent his free time at the Southland Drag in Gray.
“I bought a Corvette and thought I could race until I realized I didn’t know what I was doing,” White said. “I went to a bunch of race driving schools and got interested in road racing.”
After graduating from Terrebonne High School in 1977, he moved to Atlanta and became a paramedic for Grady EMS.
It wasn’t until the early 1990s that he decided to get into chiropractic medicine. He earned his bachelor’s degree in the field in 1996 from Life University in Marietta, Ga.
“I wanted to do something in the medical profession. I went back to school when I was older, so I didn’t want to spend all those years going to medical school, so I decided to be a chiropractor,” White said.
He got into sports medicine after a stint as the team doctor for the Life University athletic program. The position also allowed him to work with athletes at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta.
“That was an amazing experience to be a part of. I knew sports medicine was what I would do the rest of my life after that,” White said. “I went into the master’s degree program in sports medicine at Life, but I decided to move back to Houma before finishing the program.”
While living in Atlanta, White also began collecting Atlanta-themed sports memorabilia and game-used souvenirs.
He keeps a small portion at his Grand Caillou Road chiropractic office – signed baseballs and bats from Braves players, a signed Hawks basketball and a softball from the American team that won the gold medal in the 1996 Olympics.
His most prized piece of memorabilia is an Atlanta Braves throwback jersey signed by Hank Aaron, who he met in the most unlikely place.
“I met him in the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile at an Arby’s fundraiser,” White said. “I got to go inside the Wienermobile and this guy was sitting there. I talked to him for an hour and I didn’t know who he was. When people kept asking for his autograph, I finally figured it out and put two and two together.”
Also on his office walls are autographed photos from other famous clients he has had over the years. Some photos are of athletes like Houma native and former middle heavyweight boxing champion Robert Allen. But most are film actors from horror and science fiction thrillers – Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker who suited up as Chewbacca and R2-D2, respectively, in the Star Wars franchise; Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films; Doug Bradley who played Pinhead in the Hellraiser movies, and others.
“You tend to get in a crowd, and you meet a lot of people from that crowd,” White explained.
Most sentimental to him, though, are the photos of his father, Milton, or “Tutte” as he was affectionately called, in his playing days with the Houma Indians. He even has one of his grandfather, George, in a 1914 team photo for an indoor baseball league in New Orleans.
“I don’t know the story behind the indoor baseball except the ball was the size of a cabbage and the bats were very skinny,” White said. “I don’t know how they even tried baseball like that.”
Between his time with the Bucks and the Conquerors, White got into racing Formula Continental, a four-cylinder version of Formula One racing.
In 2008, he tied for first place during the Grand Bayou Road Race Series. This year he came in fifth after missing two races due to an SIFL coaches’ meeting and the Conquerors’ training camp.
“The cars are built like a Formula One race car with wings on the front and back,” he said. “It has a Ford Pinto engine, but it gets a good bit of speed. I can go up to about 150 miles per hour.”
For the married father of three, being back around football is where he is most comfortable. Besides being the Conquerors’ team doctor, he is also their team videographer – filming practices, editing game film, and shooting short team segments for SIFL sponsors vidswap.com.
“I enjoy wearing many hats at the same time. That means I’ll never get bored,” White confessed. “I missed the Bucks when they left. With Franklin Thomas bringing the Conquerors to Houma, I love being back with a team again. I enjoy it, I really do.”
Dr. Rory White keeps a sampling of his sports memorabilia at his Grand Caillou Road office. He displays a bat signed by Houma Hawks’ players from their first practice, footballs signed by the Bayou Bucks’ and Houma Conquerors’ indoor football teams, and a poster signed by all members of the 2003 Bucks’ team.
