Gators OL Ethan White proving hard work always pays off

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- This past month many Florida football players took to twitter to show their post winter workout transformation, including Ethan White.

Fans quickly showed their support.

"Well damn my dude! Glad you play for the good guys."

"Keep up the great work, Ethan!"

"Keep grinding big fella!! Proud of ya!!"

White deserves every single praise and compliment.

On his first day at Florida, a little over a year ago, White weighed 393 pounds. After the final whistle of the 2019 season, he weighed 338 pounds.

"I came here I was just confident that I was going to get down to the weight I needed to be at and just being able to play," he said.

"Look at where we are now in just a year," Ethan's mother, Rosemary White, said.

It was not an easy journey.

White arrived on campus and immediately went to work. Relying on Florida's Director of Strength and Conditioning, Nick Savage, then Director of Sports Nutritionist Collier Perno, who was replaced by Stephanie Horvath in the summer, and of course UF co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach John Hevesy, White quickly went to work.

"They just set a goal with the weight I needed to get at," Ethan told Gators Territory. "Then they just told me how to do it consistently. Not how to do it the wrong way, but how to do it the right way, and also build strength and muscle. Just try to set a plan."

The plan worked and White slowly saw the pounds melt away. However, there is a piece of the puzzle missing.

Although Savage and company should be commended for their work, one thing often left out of the narrative is the work ethic and focus needed for a transformation like this.

"Nick Savage is great, John Hevesy is great, but in my mind, of course I am going to say this, but Ethan is the greatest," Rosemary said. "At 18 he is focused enough to learn from them, grow from them, but at the end of the day it's all him. It's all his hard work."

"I think it was a lot of ownership by Ethan," said Horvath. "Here is where I am and here is where I need to be. The beauty of freshmen athletes is that they are moldable and changeable...With Ethan realizing, 'this is where I need to go', he took a lot of ownership with that and is one that takes guidance easily and wants to soak it up, soak it in and take those changes, and be the best that he can be because he is so talented."

"The transformation is really cool to see," added Horvath. "It's exciting for him, and I think he has a big career in front of him."

This transformation took a lot of mental and physical effort in White's part. He not only relied on his fellow teammates, like Richard Gouraige, but he also relied on family, specifically his mother, Rosemary.

Rosemary, a single mother of two, knows a thing or two about working through adversity.

"I really believe in support," she said.

When Ethan and his brother were growing up, Rosemary had to make a lot of sacrifices for her children. When child care was unavailable, her boys were seen doing homework in her office. She did everything in her power to make sure her kids were always taken care of.

"Sometimes I wanted to give up," she said. "And then I would look at him [Ethan], and he was so full of life, strong, and determined, and he was the reason I kept going."

"I am grateful for everything she did for us," said Ethan.

It's only natural that Rosemary did not want her son to give up during his freshman year in college. So when Ethan changed his diet, so did she; when Ethan would go to the gym, so would she.

"I was going through that with him," she said. "When he would text me that he was going to the gym, I would text him and say. 'I am at the gym too. How you doin?' He would write, 'I'm good.' Then I would reply, 'me too. We are doing it together.'"

Ethan quickly saw results on the scale, however, that was not the biggest change.

"He is not my little boy anymore. He is a man," his mother said. "I would say after the first month I noticed the change. In the way he spoke to me.I can't describe it. It was something in his tone in his voice. It was very adult and focused and thoughtful in the way he spoke."

The sophomore offensive lineman is often lauded by fans for his transformation, but when he signed to UF, the Florida native was on the receiving end of some heavy vitriol on message boards and on social media.

Several fans were skeptical about the White recruitment, questioning why Hevesy took the 6-foot-5 player in the first place.

"When you recruit a kid, you say well here are the intangibles that he has, those things that you don't always see," said John Hevesy. "In recruiting you read about his height and his weight but you don't read about the intangibles, his character. No one writes about those, so thats the recruiting process, you found the kids that have those."

No one read about his back injury his senior season or about his move to the gifted program at the age of five because teachers realized he was bored in class. No one talked about how he worked every morning before school to help his family.

"It was very difficult to me," Rosemary said about seeing those online comments. "It probably didn't bother him as much as me. I worked hard the whole of my life and my children's life to build them up, to give them positivity, encouragement, self awareness, confidence in themselves, and then these little trolls come out and act like they know what life is like as a student athlete.

"Watching him grow and succeed helped me cope with the things that I was seeing," she added. "Sometimes I would fire back..At the end of the season I did a post and, I finally was able to release what I had inside. I never had any doubts that Ethan was going to be great."

Rosemary has reason to gloat now.

At the start of the 2019 season, Gouraige was Florida's sixth man off the bench, however, Ethan White was seventh, despite being a freshman. When Chris Bleich left the program, Gouraige slid into a starting role and White was now the first man off the bench.

He made his first start against Vanderbilt when Brett Heggie was out with an injury.

"He never let anything stand in his way," said Rosemary. "I don't know how he did it. I don't how he grew up in that year, handled everything that he handled, and didn't crack."

White played in six games in last year's campaign. In the Orange Bowl against Virginia, he was the only member of the 2019 class to be placed on the field at the biggest moments. He didn't start but he he was the player Hevesy chose to finish the game with.

"I feel great," said Ethan after the win over UVA. "I feel like I can do whatever the coaches want me to do. I still have stuff work on, to do, but I feel great.

"I think we can be great next season," he added about the offensive line. "I think we have a bunch of young guys that have been working together in spring and fall camp, so I think we will be something special next year."

Sacrifice.

Focus.

Determination.

Rosemary White has these qualities as a single mother and now her son is showing those same traits on and off the field.

"What motivates me is to play for my family, taking care of them in the future," said Ethan.

"Knowing that this is his dream, and that he is doing it every time he steps onto that field is what brings me the most joy," said Rosemary.