Two decades ago, White led Tulane's athletic department – where I had the privilege of being part of his administrative team – before moving on to positions at Arizona State, Notre Dame and now in Durham.
Since he departed Tulane in 1996, his current employer has not faced the Green Wave in a major competition. That changes on Saturday, when the Blue Devils welcome Tulane to Wallace-Wade Stadium.
"I'm very uneasy about it, to say the least," White said earlier this week. "It's awkward, uncomfortable. I have a duty and supreme loyalty to Duke University, but I feel like I continue to be an extended member of the Tulane University family."
Also, he talks realignment:
Rest of story here"I've never seen the kind of the change we're experiencing at this time," White said. "It's rapid change, and I'm not sure there is a significant slowdown in sight."
Throughout his career, White – who has a Ph.D. in education – has continued to stay near his roots. He teaches a sports business class as part of Duke's MBA program in the university's Fuqua School of Business.
"In my class, we talk a lot about compression state economics," White said. "That's what is happening right now (in college athletics)."
Compression state economics has already hit our economy, most notably in the banking and airline industries. Mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcies, takeovers. The industries still exist, but with fewer players.
The "players" in college athletics are the major conferences, and to a degree, the BCS. At the end of the day, there will likely be fewer players at the table.
If you didn't know it before, college athletics really is big business.
"You have these wanna-be profit centers," White said of college athletic departments, "and they're encapsulated within this not-for-profit, large academy. There's enormous pressure for college athletics to be as reliant on the smallest (university) subsidy possible. That's kind of put college athletics into this free enterprise game.
"I don't know if I've got it figured it out, but it looks like we're headed to four or five consortiums – you might call them mega-conferences."