KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Rachaad White finally got a chance to step inside Arrowhead Stadium, about 10 minutes away from where he grew up.
He got to step into the end zone, too.
White turned one of his three carries for 19 yards into a touchdown on Monday night, when he returned to Kansas City with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to face his hometown Chiefs. The Bucs ultimately lost 30-24 in overtime, after Baker Mayfield had rallied them for a tying touchdown with 27 seconds left, but that didn’t entirely spoil White’s night.
“Obviously it was my first ever game here,” he said. “I liked it, the electricity that was going on with the fans. It was fun.”
The 25-year-old running back’s journey to this point was long, winding and difficult.
White grew up in a tough part of town as one of four boys raised by a single mother. His family never had the money to buy him a ticket to a Chiefs game, so he instead dreamed of playing for them while running around the yard, imagining that he was juking and cutting against an NFL defense just like his boyhood hero, Jamaal Charles.
White played basketball and football at Center High School and was undoubtedly the team’s most talented player. But not a single Division I scholarship offer came his way, and he landed at Division II Nebraska-Kearney. Even then, White had to redshirt when it became clear he wouldn’t see the field, and ultimately he headed for a California junior college.
