Former Illinois, Cal and Raiders head coach Mike White dies at 89

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Former Illinois, Cal and Las Vegas Raiders head coach Mike White has died, his family announced.

He was 89.

White’s family said that he died on Sunday in Newport Beach, California. A cause of death is not known.

White spent two seasons leading the Raiders as a head coach after they returned to Oakland, though he was fired after the 1996 season after he went just 15-17. He also spent time as an assistant with the franchise when it was in Los Angeles from 1990-1994, and then short stints with the San Francisco 49ers and St. Louis Rams. He was an offensive assistant with the Rams during the 1999 season, when they won the Super Bowl with quarterback Kurt Warner. He retired after that title. 

White’s biggest success as a head coach undoubtedly came at the college level. The Bay Area native was the head coach at Cal from 1972-1977, returning to lead the school where he was a four-sport athlete himself in the 1950s. He compiled a 35-30-1 record in his six seasons there, and he earned Coach of the Year honors in 1975. The Golden Bears won a share of the Pac-8 title that season, and running back Chuck Muncie was the runner-up in the Heisman Trophy race.

After two seasons with the 49ers as an offensive line coach, White returned to the college level to lead Illinois in 1980. 

He finished with a 47-41-3 record in his eight seasons with the Illini, and helped the team make its first Rose Bowl in two decades during the 1983 season. That team went a perfect 9-0 in Big Ten play and won the conference championship, though they fell to UCLA in the Rose Bowl that season. White also earned Big Ten Coach of the Year honors after that campaign.

White also spent time as a student assistant and assistant coach at both Cal and Stanford before he landed the head job at Cal in 1972.

"Mike was special," former Cal linebacker Burl Toler Jr. told The Associated Press. "He treated us like men and with a lot of respect. Mike was a very gifted and smart coach who loved Cal and loved being a coach, and he surrounded himself with a lot of like minds who instilled in us a will to succeed."