Cancer Tried to Take Down the Strongest Woman That Jordan White Has Known. Now He's Working to Help Those Like Her.

Nashville–As Jordan White’s mom Alexandra Georges walked into her Largo, Maryland, home after working “her a** off,” she would often find that her son wasn’t there.

White says his mom–whose name he has tattooed on his right forearm–is a “soldier” and one of his “rocks” who has done everything in her power to make sure that he and his three sisters “had everything” that they could’ve wanted. For that to have a chance of happening, she had to work long days on top of her parenting duties. Sometimes that would mean losing track of her son.

“Where the h*** is Jordan at?” She would say.

White says that sometimes he was at football practice, school or outside with his friends, but the most likely answer to Georges’ question was that he was at his grandma Margaret Georges’ house.

“I used to be at my grandma’s every day,” White told Vandy on SI. “My grandma is like my rock. I grew up with my grandma. I grew up under her household. My mom worked long hours, so my grandma was really my other mother.”

As long as White can remember, he and his grandma have shared a unique bond. Georges is from Haiti and doesn’t speak “too much” English, but speaks enough to understand. Even as White enters his sixth season away from home as a college football player, his grandmother leaves him a message every morning and he still checks up on her.

Georges has gotten older and doesn’t cook the way she used to, but White “still misses” her food anytime he’s away from home. He says it doesn’t taste the same as it did 10 years ago–when he ate it “24/7”--but it’s still “amazing” to him.

Perhaps greater than the quality of the food that White’s grandmother makes at this stage of her life is the strength that she demonstrates each time she gets into the kitchen to make a meal. Most people who have been through what she has wouldn’t be able to do what she still does each day.

Georges is a two-time Breast Cancer survivor and still watches after elderly people for work to this day. White says Georges isn’t supposed to be working nowadays, “but she’s still going out there going over to work every day putting up a fight” while subsequently demonstrating her heart to serve.

Jordan White, Vanderbilt Football — White and his grandmother have always shared a strong relationship. | Jordan White Foundation

“I’m like ‘Dang, grandma! You still working right now?” White says.

“Ti gason, mind your business,” She jabs back at him with a laugh.

Ti gason is Haitian Creole for “boy” and is the start of a sentence that demonstrates the relationship that her and White have. When the Vanderbilt center is around, he often goes to pick her up from her work and take her out to eat. White and Georges may joke around with each other, but he wants her to know that he cares, even if he’s in Nashville rather than at home in Maryland.

As a result, White started the Jordan White Foundation. White’s foundation is designed to empower “women and children by providing financial relief and hope through compassionate community programs.” It’s said to “support women battling breast cancer with direct assistance.”

“I want to be able to help somebody who’s in need right now,” White said. “I want to put smiles on women’s faces who have breast cancer right now, or cancer. I want them to feel loved, to feel appreciated by somebody else who’s not in their family. I wish my grandmother had that at the time [she was diagnosed]. I wish somebody could’ve been in her corner besides her family.”

White’s foundation officially launched on July 22 in a video that says he watched breast cancer “try to take down the strongest woman I ever knew.” The idea for White to embark on this mission came “a few months ago” from his agent Darren Wilson.

Wilson says his initial idea for White’s foundation came as he remembered the impact of Breast Cancer Awareness Month around football and thought of how the disease hit close to home for his client.

“They’re very close,” Wilson said of White and his grandmother. “That’s what made me pivot into him starting the foundation.”

White’s agent says the foundation will have an event during Vanderbilt’s October bye week that will be “geared around” breast cancer and honoring women who deal with it or have passed away as a result of it.

Georges is still alive and kicking, but White still remembers his family hiding his grandmother’s first diagnosis from him while he was an eighth grader and how it “shook and hurt” him at the time. He knows firsthand how the experiences can wear down families mentally, physically and financially. White can’t help but remember how he was “scared at times” in regards to his grandmother’s health.

He remembers the second diagnosis–which came while he was a sophomore in high school–and how he struggled with the thought of being away at private school while Georges struggled. That second diagnosis made White “want to go harder” on the football field and make his grandma proud.

The last diagnosis was when the alarms went off in White’s head, though.

“I started to notice myself,” White said. “With her going bald, and her fingertips going dark black, it was just strange to me. I never knew what was going on. Until that moment, I was like ‘damn, this might be something serious or something bad.”

With the experiences that White had bottled up over the years in mind, Wilson says the Vanderbilt center and his mom was “all for” starting the foundation and backing its mission. The Jordan White Foundation aims to provide transportation, childcare and other expenses that insurance doesn’t cover.

“The mission is to honor his grandma,” Wilson said. “I thought it would be a great idea for him to start a foundation that the mission is to honor women who were fighting breast cancer or passed from breast cancer. It also pivots to youth in poverty as well as youth without fathers.”

As White envisions the mission of his foundation coming to fruition, he likely sees it making an impact on the lives of people who were once like him and his family. The Vanderbilt center’s experience through his grandmother gives him a soft spot for those affected by breast cancer and his own upbringing allows him to connect with the other group that he’s setting out to serve.

The Vanderbilt center grew up in a single-parent household after his father was “locked up” while White was at an early age and had a first-hand view of how difficult it can be growing up without having what other kids have.

White’s mother worked tirelessly so that her four kids wouldn’t be at a disadvantage, but he was still without school supplies and the clothing that he needed in certain stages of his life and had “a lot of step fathers that didn’t really work out.”

“I was one of them kids where I didn’t have everything I have now [when] I was growing up,” White said. “I just want to do better for the younger guys and be able to show them that somebody’s here for them, man. I just want them to have stuff to go to school and have stuff like that.”

White says he grew up like an “ordinary kid” while wearing a smile that indicates that he’s almost trying to convince himself of that by saying it. He knows the struggles that he’s faced, but doesn’t want to be defined by them.

Nowadays, the Vanderbilt center has built himself up financially as a result of being named a top 50 transfer in the country and is on an NFL track as long as all goes well for him in his lone season at Vanderbilt. He’s also raising a two-year old while hoping to provide a childhood without the struggles that his included.

Jordan White — White's journey has led him to Vanderbilt. | Vanderbilt Athletics

“I mean, it’s an amazing journey,” Wilson said. “I think he’s a testament to his hard work for his community back home and even for the Nashville community, like the less-fortunate guys. Any high schooler player that wants to be inspired should look into his story.”

White has gone from an underserved kid who seemingly didn’t have much normal in his life outside of what he encountered as he went to football practice each day, to a late-rising college football player that’s now made a name for himself as one of the most highly regarded offensive linemen to switch schools this offseason.

With that has come a level of maturity that leads those around him to believe that he’s the right guy to capitalize on the vision that he shares with Wilson.

“He's the type of guy you could go to about anything, whether it's football or anything outside of football,” Vanderbilt backup lineman Cooper Starks said. “I love that guy.”

As White walks off the field after starting each play for Vanderbilt in the fall, he hopes those around his program won’t only notice how he impacts the game. They’ll notice who he is, too.

“Really, really special person,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said. “It’s no surprise that he’s doing big things out there and he’ll continue to do big things and use his platform for good.”

Perhaps White will have a memorable moment or two that sticks with Vanderbilt fans as he leaves its program in a few months, but perhaps his greatest legacy will come as a result of the way he facilitates growth through his foundation.

If White does what he sets out to do through it, kids like him and families like his will have their lives altered. Perhaps that’s what he should be shooting for more than Vanderbilt’s national championship aspirations.

“I want to put a smile on people’s faces,” White said. “I want somebody to see Jordan White [and say] ‘oh, Jordan White is doing something great right now.’”