Auburn Hills ― The season was falling apart for Oakland men’s basketball. The team was picked in preseason to be among the top two contenders for the Horizon League championship, and it was living up to the lofty expectations into February, before everything started to spiral out of control.
One loss was followed by another, and then another, and then another ― four in a row, and a fifth consecutive league loss in league play, something Oakland hadn’t seen in more than 20 years, was absolutely in play at the O’Rena on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 22, in a game against Milwaukee.
It was a back-and-forth game, and it was getting late, and Oakland, by this point in the season, snake-bitten and leaking confidence, had seen this script too many times before. But this time, crunch time, Brett White II ― one player who isn’t overwhelmed by the stress of a basketball game, because he’s long endured the stresses of real, hard life ― flipped the script. With Oakland clinging to a narrow lead with just over six minutes left, a Milwaukee player lost possession, White went diving to the floor for the loose ball, he grabbed it and quickly flipped it to Buru Naivalurua, who passed it to Warren Marshall IV, who dunked it to extend Oakland’s lead to four points.
The crowd went crazy, the play lit a spark with coaches and teammates, Oakland went on to win the game, 81-70 ― and then won the next one, too, resuscitating a season in which the Golden Grizzlies began with serious NCAA Tournament aspirations, and now have them again as the Horizon League tournament begins Wednesday.
Dreams of the Dance all are still there, right in front of the Golden Grizzlies, perhaps because of one selfless play by White ― who, oh, by the way, has a partially torn MCL in his left knee, and has been playing through substantial pain for the better part of two months.
“If everybody could play like Brett White, we would win every game,” teammate Brody Robinson said. “He’s going to do it, whatever it takes.”
Said head coach Greg Kampe, reflecting on that one season-defining play, by a player who, if you ask some doctors, probably shouldn’t even be playing: “He might not have gotten up.”
But White, albeit slowly, did get up ― just like he has so many days before. All he’s ever done is get up.
Two weeks ago, White and Oakland teammates gathered at an off-campus apartment for a night of tacos and watching basketball ― and, of course, cake. They were celebrating White’s 28th birthday. White is the second-oldest college basketball player in Division I this season. To teammates, he’s “Unc,” as in uncle, or “Old Man.”
Ten years earlier, back home in Battle Creek, White was a lost boy, having fallen out of love with the game of basketball amid a series of personal strife, including a mom who spent three years in prison, a dad who was out of work, and the death of a grandmother who, through all the family’s instability, had been like a second mom to him. Bills were past due and homelessness was a real threat, so when White graduated from Battle Creek Central High in 2016, he didn’t pack his things and head off to college.
Instead, White gave up his dream of Division I basketball and went to work in oil refineries all over the country. The job was brutal and dangerous. He often worked 17-hour days and seven-day weeks. He was tired. He was lonely. He was depressed. He wasn’t good. But the money, that was good, and that was all that mattered. His family, mom, dad and two older siblings, needed the money.
“It was heartbreaking to watch him sacrifice for us,” said Tosha Carrier, his mother. “The mom guilt is heavy.”
Home over hoops
It’s March, the time of year when so many basketball players’ dreams are realized. But this is a story about a dream deferred ― and nearly destroyed.
White’s college basketball career is coming to an end, whether it ends Wednesday in Oakland’s Horizon League tournament opener against Northern Kentucky at the O’Rena, or whether it ends next week in Indianapolis in the Horizon League semifinals or final, or whether it ends later this month in the NCAA Tournament.
Whenever, and however, it ends, a part of White will be happy ― because, after all, it happened.
“Being here, I feel like myself,” White said the other day at Oakland’s practice facility, following a practice in which he didn’t really practice (he barely can since tearing the MCL).
“Playing basketball has brought so much joy and happiness. All my friends and family see it all the time.
“They see how much it means to me.”
White was a four-time letterwinner in high school, earning honorable-mention all-conference honors his first two seasons, and first-team all-conference honors his last two seasons. As a senior, he averaged 19.4 points and 7.4 rebounds, even though he wasn’t even going to play. The summer before his senior year, White made the decision to quit basketball. A house call from his former coach, legendary Battle Creek basketball figure Greg Williams, convinced him to change his mind (Jimmy Chitwood-style, right out of “Hoosiers”), and play one more year. His mind was elsewhere. He went through the motions. But because he was so good, a 6-foot-6 sharp-shooter, the numbers were there.
By the time he graduated in 2016, though, the numbers weren’t adding up ― as in, the household finances.
For much of his high school career, White drew significant interest from Division I colleges, especially at the mid-major level, but by senior year, he had long given up on that. In 2011, White’s grandmother, Maxine White, mother of White’s dad, also Brett, died. It was devastating, especially for young Brett.
“She was the backbone of the family,” Carrier said.
In September 2012, Carrier, a teenage mother when she had White’s older sister, got into trouble and was arrested on multiple financial crimes. She was jailed and sentenced, and she served three years at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti.
Carrier didn’t see White or her other children ― White has three siblings, Joshua Shaffer, 33, and Serenity White, 29, who are Carrier’s children, and Jamlia White, 44, from his dad’s first relationship ― for her entire prison stay. That was by choice. They talked regularly on the phone.
“It was horrible,” said Carrier, now 50. “I made some bad choices being around the wrong people, and I just used it as an example to him. Choices and consequences. We make choices, and there are consequences, whether they are good or bad.”
Carrier was released from prison in January 2015, and among her first stops was White’s high-school basketball game. She didn’t tell him he was coming. He didn’t know until just before tip-off, when he looked up in the stands, and there she sat, alongside his dad.
Mom and Dad aren’t together. White had rarely seen them together.
“She got out that day, and she made that game,” White said. “That meant a lot to me.”
It was a rare ― and fleeting ― moment of happiness for White.
His mom was back home, but the struggles were just getting started ― Mom had to rebuild her life, while Dad, now 65, was unable to work because of a chronic back injury. There were many times when White’s mom and dad didn’t know where he spent the night, but it wasn’t there.
“It was such a bad situation,” said Williams, the longtime varsity boys basketball coach at Battle Creek Central and long a mentor to White, who resigned before White’s senior year to help take care of a sick relative.
“He was just staying wherever he could find. … It was a tough time.”
White gutted through his senior season, counting down the days until graduation ― and until he could go to work. Within weeks after walking, he had hooked on with a company in Indiana, and he was quickly being sent all over the country. Oklahoma, Missouri, Arizona, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin. You name it, White saw it, or at least he saw a whole lot of oil refineries.
Working at an oil refinery is a complex job, but to boil it down, here’s what you need to know: It’s hard work, it’s hot, and it’s dangerous. Most workers can’t cut it. White got six friends a job with him; five quit within days.
White stuck with it, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. Every two weeks, he sent home money.
“He kept a roof over our head,” Carrier said. “He took a lot of the pressure off.”
Every few weeks, when he’d get a brief break, White would make quick stops back home in Battle Creek. He’s an observant fella. He’d open the fridge and note the lack of food. He’d spot overdue electric bills on the counter. He’d see empty gas tanks.
White would leave more money. Carrier never asked. That mom guilt. White never made her ask.
“It helped all of us get back on our feet,” said Carrier, “and get back on the right track.”
White did that for more than two years before his family members were taken care of (the had roofs, they had transportation, Mom had a job), and then did it another year-plus to save up something for himself.
In 2020, White was working a job in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he was miserable, or at least more miserable than normal. They were behind schedule at that job, so they had to work a 23-hour shift (“which isn’t, like, legal,” White said) just to get it done. They were moving 4-ton bricks. He burned his foot. He called it the “worst day ever,” and to make matters worse, they were looking at seven hours of sleep max, then a long drive back to headquarters in Indiana, before a quick turnaround to the next job in Florida, all in a 48-hour span.
At some point, he found time for a quick chat with Mom, who by that time had secured a job she loved, working with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. She was finally good. Dad was finally good. The siblings were good. And Mom, hearing the sorrow and fatigue in her son’s voice, knew it was her time to be the parent.
“We had a talk,” Carrier said. “I told him, it’s time to come home. Chase your dreams. I don’t care what they are.
“It’s your dream, and I want you to get it.”
White didn’t need to hear more. He was done ― and just getting started.
Back on the court
White initially set his sights on a degree. But Williams, one day at Battle Creek’s historic Claude Evans Park, where White learned the game as a kid and later the game as a camp counselor, told White he still had basketball eligibility. In July 2021, White, who said he never touched a basketball during his three-plus years in the refineries, enrolled at Kellogg Community College, where, turns out, he still had it. He played two seasons of junior-college ball, averaging 22.9 points his first year and 21.3 points his second, earning first-team all-Michigan Community College Athletic Association honors both years.
In 2023, he moved up to the NAIA level, at Rochester Christian ― a fit on many levels, including that he’d be allowed to bring his best friend, his dog Gunner, a black lab-pitbull mix that was a gift from Mom. That was nonnegotiable, White told Rochester Christian. The school was happy to have them both. White averaged 12.6 points in his first year (second-team all-Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference) at Rochester Christian, and then 21 points in his second (first-team all-conference). In his second year, he also scored 31 in an exhibition game against Oakland.
Kampe didn’t remember until spring 2025, when Rochester Christian coach Klint Pleasant called and said he had a player for him. It’s a big leap from Rochester to Division I Oakland, but Pleasant is a friend, so Kampe listened.
“To be honest with you, I knew somebody had 31 against us, but I didn’t know who. It’s an exhibition,” Kampe said. “I told my staff (including another Battle Creek native, Trey McDonald, who long ago was a mentor of White’s), and they said, ‘Yeah, he’s the kid that had 31 against us.”
Kampe loves a good story (and this one has a Roy Hobbs where-have-you-been element to it, straight out of “The Natural”), and Kampe loves a good 3-point shooter ― so he welcomed White, who cost Oakland a scholarship but not a dime in NIL, as an insurance policy well down the depth chart. He then made his Division I debut on a grand stage, against then-No. 7 Michigan at Crisler Center. Then he played Purdue. Then he played Houston. All top-10 teams. Minutes were slim, but White’s smile was wide.
He had his breakout game in mid-November at UCF, scoring 21, making six 3-pointers. Then, in early December, Oakland’s secondary 3-point shooter, Nassim Mashhour, went down with a season-ending injury. White’s time ― a long time coming ― had come.
White is averaging 9.1 points and 3.2 rebounds. He’s made 71 3s, most on the team. He’s played in all 31 games, even since suffering that MCL injury on New Year’s Day.
“He’s kind of been the glue that’s kept us together,” Naivalurua said. “He’s the toughest guy.
“You never really question what the game means to him or what the team means to him.”
The road has been long, and life has never been easy for White, who keeps a tight circle of close friends, and two of them died, including a cousin, in recent weeks. In August, he lost Gunner. But the family is good. These days, Mom, who works 50 hours a week at a gas station, will Cash App him $100 out of the blue, he’ll send it right back, and this game of hot potato will go on for hours. Mom doesn’t want the money back, but she’d like her crock pot, recently used to bring White a homemade pot roast. The family is together at most home games.
White will get his degree in interdisciplinary studies, with a focus on sports and business management. He has dreams of one day building a gym back home in Battle Creek. He envisions it being the safe sanctuary for kids he didn’t have when he was growing up. He loves kids. He didn’t always get to be one.
But for now, there’s still more basketball to be played, at Oakland and, health-willing, overseas in the pros. White, who had to grow up fast, is in no hurry to get another “real” job anytime soon.
“Trust me when I say, I’m OK,” laughed White, the second-oldest college basketball player in Division I this year, behind Green Bay’s Ramel Bethea, who is 29. “Once you realize you gave up on your dream, you realize how much that dream meant to you.
“I’m not giving up on my dream ever again.”
Horizon League men’s tournament
FIRST ROUND
➤ Northern Kentucky (18-13, 10-10) at Oakland (16-15, 12-8), 7 Wednesday, ESPN+
➤ Milwaukee (12-9, 8-12) at Detroit Mercy (15-14, 12-8), 7 Wednesday, ESPN+
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Brett White II gave up hoop dreams to help family. At 28, it’s game on
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
