Last fall, Mali White was a starting forward/midfielder on Rye High School’s state champion girls soccer team. In the spring, she’ll be a starter on the Garnets’ varsity lacrosse team. But right now, she’s January’s Lions Club’s Athlete of the Month because of her winning ways on the school’s winter indoor track team.
“We nominated her for this after our league meet, when she ran three events that evening,” Head Coach Kevin Murphy said of his senior girls captain, who runs the 300-meter sprint, the 600-meter middle-distance race, and one leg of the 4×400-meter relay. “Mali won two of the three races — and came in first overall.”
The girls coach said the three-sport White “has a wonderful sense of humor and overall confidence as an athlete. She always keeps everyone laughing and enjoying themselves, while trying to bring everyone up to their best.”
White credits her coaches — Murphy as well as Blair Moynihan and Michael “Shark” Szarkowicz — for her winning the Lions Club award, bestowed each month by the club and Rye High’s athletic department. “I get very tense and anxious before a meet,” she said, “and they have to talk me down so I can do my best.” Asked whether speed or stamina help her more during a race, she replied, “Actually, it’s mental. When I get to the point in the race when my muscles are telling me I’m exhausted and need to stop, I just turn that part of my brain off.”
Last winter, she and her sprint-medley teammates qualified for the Nike Indoor Nationals, where they won in the Emerging Elite category.
White isn’t the first athlete in her family. Older sister Remi played soccer for Davidson College in North Carolina, where Mali will play on the lacrosse team in the fall.
A member of the National Honor Society, Mali’s senior-year schedule includes four Advanced Placement courses (Calculus BC, Government and Politics, Physics, and Spanish) as well as Speech and Debate, Orchestra, and Economics. Her favorite? “Math,” she said. “That’s usually my weakest subject, and Mr. Valinoti makes it really interesting.”
White also belongs to two school clubs: L.E.T.S. (Let’s Erase the Stigma), which works to raise awareness of substance misuse and to promote change and improve outcomes; and the Entrepreneur Club, which operates a student-run, nonprofit school-spirit apparel store at ryegarments.myshopify.com that benefits the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. During the winter, she also shovels snow for elderly residents as a member of Rye’s Snow Angels.
“Mali is a wonderful athlete and has been a great leader on our team,” Coach Murphy said. “This year, she’s a tremendous performer for us, accomplishing many personal bests and constantly working to improve. She motivates the younger class of kids and pushes them to be a better version of themselves.”
By winning the January award, White is among those eligible to be chosen Rye High’s Athlete of the Year at the Lions Club’s annual awards luncheon in the spring.