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| Personal information | |||
| Original team(s) | Pioneer Football Club (CAFL) | ||
| Debut | Round 1, 21 March 1992, Brisbane Bears vs. Carlton, at Carrara Oval | ||
| Playing career1 | |||
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1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 2005. | |||
| Career highlights | |||
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Darryl White (b. 12 June 1973) is a former Australian rules footballer who played his career with the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League from 1992 to 2005. An indigenous Australian, in 2005 he was named at fullback in the Australian rules football Indigenous Team of the Century.
White grew up in Alice Springs in central Australia, playing junior football for the Pioneer Football Club. He had a difficult adolescence, but had a natural talent for football. In 1991 he represented the Northern Territory at the Teal Cup under-17 national football carnival, held in Brisbane, where he came to the attention of Brisbane Bears coach Robert Walls and his football manager Scott Clayton. Impressed with his clean ball handling skills, his leap and ability to "play tall", and with the advantage of a priority draft pick from the Northern Territory, he was drafted by the Bears at the end of the season.
Despite initial reluctance to move to the Bears—a club which, in White's words, "only won two games a year"—the future football star was persuaded to give the club a chance (turning up to his first training session in a purple LA Lakers singlet and bouncing a basketball). He found the transition from Alice Springs football to training under strict disciplinarian Walls difficult once there, however: on one occasion during an 8km cycle up a mountain he hurled his bike off a cliff, telling his coach he'd come to play football, not ride bikes.
His first season of football was an announcement of a rare talent, leading the Brownlow Medal count after three rounds with two best-on-ground performances and kicking the official goal of the year with his first goal. However White suffered continual problems with homesickness, returning to Alice Springs immediately after the end of the season and failing to show up for pre-season training a month later. When Walls telephoned him to ask him if he was coming back, the response was: "I'm really busy—call me again in a couple of weeks." Little wonder that his coach and teammates sometimes questioned his commitment to football, but his sheer skill and ability compelled them to persist with him. Despite regularly disappearing to Alice Springs every summer, he always returned sooner or later, ready to try again.
White soon became a crowd favourite, with a marking ability well beyond that which his height would normally allow.