Raiders RB Zamir White has overcome lifetime of obstacles

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Scotland High School coach Richard Bailey has had a handful of players make it to the NFL out of Laurinburg, North Carolina, none more special than Las Vegas Raiders rookie Zamir White.

Shortly after the Raiders took White with the 122nd pick in the NFL draft, he said it was a moment he’d been waiting for his entire life.

It’s a life he was never supposed to live.

Affectionately known as Zeus, the now-chiseled 225-pound power back weighed 1 pound when his mother was six months pregnant. Doctors wanted to terminate the pregnancy. His great-grandmother demanded otherwise, even if it meant he could exhale only once.

White was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate and was given two weeks to live. He spent the first three months of his life in a hospital, as he developed a leak in his kidney and needed surgery for a hernia.

Later in life, White tore his right ACL as a senior in high school and then his left ACL after arriving at the University of Georgia — both within a year.

White’s story was chronicled by the SEC Network and ESPN.

“The amount of resiliency he’s shown in his life, and I think overcoming what he did as a young boy, and then having a cleft lip issue, and being real shy and little introverted, and being picked on a little bit when he was younger — I think that really has just hardened him,” Bailey told The Associated Press during a phone interview. “I also think he feels like God kind of saved him, and he wants to make the most of this opportunity.”

White has been impressive during training camp. He opened the preseason with 52 yards on 11 carries and 23 yards from three receptions in a 27-11 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Hall of Fame Game.

“He is very special, and I think it’s unbelievable what he’s gone through in his...