A forerunner of the now essential “big man” in basketball, Dean White, was a key member of the 1943 Salem Community High School basketball team that won third place in the state tournament.

White participated in football, basketball and track three years at SCHS. He was a member of the North Egypt Conference football championship teams of 1940 and 1941. Salem was second to Flora in 1942 as the 13-0 Flora victory was Salem’s only conference loss that season. In White’s three years of football, Salem had a 16-1-1 conference record, with only one touchdown scored against them in NEC play in 1941.

In basketball, the key year was 1943 when the team of White, Roy Gatewood, John McDougal, Bob Roddy and Harry Carneal, won the North Egypt Conference championship, the regional and sectional titles and finished third in the state after a heart breaking three point loss to Paris in the semi-finals. Paris, the eventual state champ, had beaten the Wildcats earlier, 50-26, in the second game of the season.

White received All-State honorable mention, Sectional selection and All-Conference selection. He attended Valparaiso University and played basketball a half year before joining the professional ranks.

He played in the old National Basketball League, the forerunner to the NBA, with the Sheboygan Redskins and played basketball while serving with the U.S. Marines. In track, White excelled in the weights division. No North Egypt Conference meets were held in 1942-44 during World War II. He won the discus throw at the Lawrenceville Indian Relays in 1941.