Contact CU Independent Assistant Sports Editor Alissa Noe at alissa.noe@colorado.edu.
Four years ago, college basketball teams across the country barely batted an eye at the University of Colorado’s newest transfer guard Derrick White. Although he ended up committing to Division II University of Colorado at Colorado Springs straight out of high school, Derrick never gave up on his dream of playing at a D-I school.
The road to CU wasn’t easy for Derrick, who began his basketball journey 17 years ago when he was just 4 years old.
“I played with my dad, some guys around the neighborhood, so I started pretty young,” he said. “It was just a fun game for me to go out and just hang out with my friends.”
His father, Richard, said Derrick showed great signs of athleticism as a child, but not just in basketball.
“Derrick liked to play any sport with a ball,” Richard said. “We got him into Kinder Basketball in Parker [Colorado] and met a group of kids and families that we would play youth sports together. Basketball led to baseball, which led to football. Those three sports kept him active growing up.”
In the end, though, the hoop ultimately won over Derrick’s heart.
As Derrick was finishing up his middle school career, he met up with the assistant coach at the University of Denver, who helped alter the course of his hoops career.
“His skills started to emerge when Derrick met Marcus Mason,” Richard said. “Marcus trained Derrick since seventh grade. He gave him the drills to improve his shooting, ball handling and decision making. He pushed him to continually get better by setting high standards and goals.”
A few years later, Derrick decided he wanted to take his career to the next level.
“Around high school, when I was playing in high school I finally thought like, it would be cool to play in college,” Derrick said. “When you go and watch college games on TV, or we go to an all-night gig, I always thought that was pretty cool. I think that’s when it started for me.”
“He started doing basketball full-time the summer before his freshman year in high school,” Richard said. “He tried out and made the Colorado Chaos team, coached by Chad Belveal. The team won several local championships and he enjoyed coming off the bench and helping where he could. As the year progressed, he got to play more and more.”
Derrick said that Mason provided the biggest impact on his overall game. In the years they spent training together, Mason taught him how to shoot correctly and how to overcome a shortage of mental toughness that plagued Derrick throughout his childhood.
“It was pretty hard when I was little,” Derrick said. “When I was younger, I always wanted to be perfect, and if I made a mistake I’d just break down and it would affect the rest of my game. That was a big stride for me, and I continue to work on it.”
That’s not to say he’s not completely out of the woods with his mental toughness deficiency yet, though.
“I mean I still — if I miss a couple shots in a row I get down on myself, but it’s a lot better from where I was in high school. It’s a pretty new process just to stay tough and confident in myself,” Derrick said.
During his time with Mason, Derrick struggled to step out of the shadow of Cory Calvert, who Mason also trained and who now plays for Brigham Young University. Though he had the same chops as his friend, his lanky body worked against him.
“Cory got a lot of richly deserved attention, but Marcus believed that Derrick had the same skills as Cory,” Richard said. “But Cory had a more developed body, whereas Derrick was smaller.”
Throughout high school, he continued to learn under the best of the best. In addition to Mason, Derrick got the opportunity to meet and work out with former NBA great and Denver native Chauncey Billups.
On top of attending Mason’s Nothing But Net camp, Derrick also attended a camp hosted by Billups himself. The experience is one that he’ll never forget.
“During free moments, Derrick would sit with Chauncey and learn from him,” Richard said. “As his college career progressed, Chauncey would offer suggestions on what to expect from teams and how to combat the different defenses he would see. Hearing professional players say you can play was a boost to his confidence.”
When push came to shove and Derrick looked to expand his career into college, he tried not to let his small size get the best of him.
“It didn’t really affect me that much. I still was working out with D-I guys like Josh Adams (of the University of Wyoming), Cory Calvert, so I knew I could play with them,” Derrick said. “I was just working hard and I saw an opportunity to play in college, so I just try to work hard on my game and not to get too down on me.”
As Derrick headed into his final year of high school, his family tried to help him achieve his dream of playing Division I basketball, but their efforts were to no avail.
“Derrick just wanted to play at the next level,” Richard said. “He believed he could play college basketball. As a family, we sent out tapes and summaries to coaches, but his body type did not fit the mold of what coaches, especially D-I coaches, were looking for.”
During his senior year, no Division I schools gave him a second look. He only received offers from Gillette College and UCCS, so Derrick went with the better of the two options.
“I guess I figured I wasn’t good enough to play [D-I] because they weren’t talking to me, so I was thinking it was based more on my size more than on my game,” Derrick said. “When I grew up, grew a little bit, it opened my game up.”
He used that as an incentive to improve his game and prove everyone who doubted him wrong.
“I worked hard, worked out like every day, spending like all the time in the gym, hanging out with the right people and getting pushed by people,” Derrick said. “I played with a lot of people who were better than me, so if they got better on the court I had to get better as well.”
But all the doubt surrounding Derrick and his abilities changed when he arrived at UCCS.
In his three years in Colorado Springs, Derrick excelled in several areas on the court. He set the UCCS career scoring record at 1,912 points, the career assists record at 343 and finished fourth in school history in career rebounds with 513. He also tied the UCCS career record scoring average at 22 points a game.
In addition to his individual achievements, Derrick led the Mountain Lions to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for Division II during his sophomore and junior years. Based on those performances, he was later named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches All-America team.
“When I got bigger and stronger, I could get to the paint,” Derrick said. “In high school, I couldn’t get into the paint as easily as I do now. That kind of attracts [D-I schools] because I widened my game out. Like I can still shoot it, but I can do more things on the basketball court than I could when I was in high school.”
His performances caught the attention of numerous Division I schools, including the likes of Colorado, Utah State, the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and Boise State. After Derrick’s junior year with the Mountain Lions, he asked for his release from the school, and the offers started rolling in.
“I asked for my release because I believed that I accomplished pretty much everything at UCCS and in D-2, so I wanted to challenge myself and see what I can do at this higher level,” Derrick said.
Long before his exodus from the Division II school, Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle and his staff had Derrick on their radar.
“We’ve been aware of Derrick for a while, probably after sophomore year at UCCS where he had a breakout year,” Boyle said. “He had a great freshman year too, but his sophomore year and his junior year were phenomenal.
“It was actually a couple years ago,” Boyle said. “We had kind of heard rumors through the basketball community in Colorado that he was thinking about leaving Colorado Springs. This was two years ago, and obviously we couldn’t do anything about it because we weren’t allowed to contact him.”
Though the Buffaloes were forced to wait another year to get in touch with him, they wasted no time once Derrick’s release was finalized.
“As soon as he got his release, we were on it,” Boyle said. “We called him, called his parents —obviously we had to go through the proper channels through the transfer process.”
After Boyle and his staff started talking to Derrick, they invited him to CU to take a look at the school and the program. From there on out, it was love at first Division I visit.
“The visit was impressive,” Richard said of his son’s initial trip to the school. “He got to play pickup games with the team. He met [Director of Basketball Strength and Conditioning] James Hardy and got to walk through the facilities. They showed him how his academics would be handled and the support the school provides the athletes.”
After the single tour of the program, Derrick didn’t talk to any of the other Division I schools that recruited him out of Colorado Springs. He was sold.
Now, as he must sit out the next year per NCAA transfer regulations, Derrick said he’s excited to mold into this Colorado basketball team and help them in whatever way he can. Richard believes he’s ready for the opportunity ahead of him.
“Derrick likes to be challenged and overcome adversity, whether it is not being recruited or doubted that he can succeed,” Richard said. “Playing the Pac-12 against top players is another opportunity to challenge himself as a player. He never doubted his ability to play with and against D-I players.”
