WEST VIRGINIA, USA — Jahiem White's ascension as one of the nation's top freshman running backs at West Virginia had its origins in the kindness of a new school teacher and her family.
White grew up in Miami, raised by a single mom simply trying to make ends meet. He wasn't happy when La'Doria Glover moved the family to York, Pennsylvania, where she had other relatives.
That's where White met Amanda Poff, a sixth-grade teacher at Phineas Davis Elementary School. Eventually, Poff and her husband, Dan, welcomed White into their home. He now refers to her as his godmother.
“They’ve just been there every step of the road since I met them. They had my back through thick and thin,” White said. "And I’m really appreciative.”
It was a bond that might not have happened.
Poff had taught for 10 years, took time off to raise her own three children and planned to stay home for good. But her kidney cancer diagnosis took a financial toll and forced her back into teaching. She returned a few months before White arrived toward the end of the school year.
The first day she saw White, Poff recalled going home and saying to her husband, “you won’t believe this kid who walked into my classroom today. He’s huge. And Jahiem is not tall, but he stood out, like the way he was built. You could tell the kid was a football player.”
In class, White was quiet. When it was his turn to be on the computer, Poff, a Penn State graduate, noticed White searching different running backs. She asked him about Nittany Lions star Saquon Barkley. White hadn't heard of him, so Poff pulled up video clips of Barkley.
White was skeptical of Barkley at first, “and I think it was mainly to get under my skin,” Poff said.
And so their connection began, although the initial phase didn’t last long. After the school year ended, White moved back to Florida with his mother. But midway through White’s seventh-grade year, “my door flew open and he came running in and hugged me,” Poff said. “And he was back.”
This time, for good. Soon, their friendship extended beyond school hours.
With football season still far off, White was going through a rough stretch and Poff said she wanted to give him an outlet. Her daughter, Harper, played AAU basketball, so Poff reached out to the coaches who found a spot for White on a boys team. The Poff family traveled both to Harper’s games and to see White play.
Initially, White would play basketball with Harper at the Poff home or stayed there on weekends.
“When things were difficult, he would just come to us,” Poff said. “Many times he would do overnights or he’d be there for two or three days, or he’d call and I’d go get him.”
White skipped eighth grade in order to enroll as a ninth grader and play varsity football immediately at William Penn High School. As a sophomore, his mother moved back to Florida and White remained in York. Poff said the decision helped maintain stability throughout White's college football recruiting process. It was then that White was welcomed into the Poff household. To make room, Dan Poff built an addition to the home.
Yet White never forgot where he came from. Glover, his mom, walked with him onto the football field on Senior Night. She was there for his letter-of-intent signing and his high school commencement ceremony. And White refers to her as the strongest woman he knows.
“That's my best friend,” White said. “She's been through a lot.”
Despite White setting a career rushing record, Poff recalled being told by many coaches that a 5-foot-7 player was too short for a major college program, despite his breakaway speed. Then, at a summer football camp in Morgantown, West Virginia, running backs coach Chad Scott took a keen interest.
“He has scary talent,” Scott said.
Talent that came on strong at the end of last season. White rushed for 522 yards in November alone, including a 204-yard effort against Cincinnati. He set a school record with an average of 7.7 yards per carry, and his 842 yards for the season ranked fourth all-time among Mountaineer freshmen and just ahead of Noel Devine. The others in that group are all members of West Virginia’s Sports Hall of Fame.
During the Big 12’s media days in July, West Virginia coach Neal Brown was perplexed when out-of-state media didn’t ask him about White.
“I think he’s special. I really do,” Brown said.
White, who attended school two hours from Penn State’s campus, didn’t play in last season’s opener in Happy Valley against the Nittany Lions. He'll get that chance on Saturday when No. 8 Penn State plays in Morgantown for the first time since 1992.
White has taken on the personality of a team that’s gotten little attention. Despite a returning ground game that ranked third in the Bowl Subdivision with 229 yards per game, the Mountaineers were left out of the preseason AP Top 25, were picked to finish seventh in the league, and White was left off the all-Big 12 preseason team.
“I love to work with a chip on my shoulder,” White said.
With White able to adjust to whatever life throws at him, Poff called him “a survivor."
“I’m most proud of him for that, that he’s a fighter," she said. "When he says he’s going to do something, especially on the field, I’ve seen that kid put a team on his back so many times. And he always pulls through.”
As much as White needed the Poff family, she needed him, too.
Having cancer at age 41 made her question “a lot of things,” she said.
“And I tell Jahiem all the time. I think the reason I was given that hurdle to overcome was because I was meant to have him, that he was meant to be with us,” Poff said. "Probably the worst time in my life turned into my greatest honor, and just one of the greatest blessings that my family had, because it brought him to us. I’ll forever be grateful for it.”