Pat White could be making a return to South Florida sports scene.
White told 640 Sports' Orlando Alzugaray, a Miami sports radio host, that the Miami Marlins have offered him a minor league deal.
But White reportedly has his sights set on a return to the NFL.
Speaking to the Palm Beach Post from Alabama where he was meeting with NFL personnel in town for the Senior Bowl, White said: "I know that I can still do it. I just want to come out here, shake hands, show my face and let coaches know that I’m interested."
Sports fans in South Florida should remember Pat White for his failed stint with the Miami Dolphins, who had used a 2009 second-round pick on the University of West Virginia product.
But undersized at 6-foot, 190 pounds, White, who was expected to enhance the Wildcat formation the Dolphins had unleashed on the NFL in 2008, was a bust. He never completed a pass and rushed 21 times for 81 yards. He suffered a concussion in Week 17 of his rookie season after a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit from Pittsburgh's Ike Taylor.
He was eventually cut during the 2010 preseason and hasn't played in the NFL since.
White, a left-handed hitter and outfielder, was named by Baseball America as a second-team high school All-American after he hit .487 with 28 steals as a senior at Daphne High School in Alabama.
He was a fourth-round pick of the Angels in the 2004 MLB draft. But White turned down a six-figure offer from the Angels to play football at West Virginia.
After his NFL flameout, he signed a minor league contract with the Kansas City Royals but lasted only a couple of months before announcing his retirement.
“I understand now that I was disrespectful, very disrespectful, to the gifts that I was given," White told the Palm Beach Post. "I wasn’t as focused as I should have been, and I took my gifts for granted. Now that I know that, it won’t happen again.”
