As a serviceman in World War I, Al White toured Europe with a U.S. basketball team and after the war enrolled at Stanford and was on their gymnastics team which won the Pacific Coast Conference championship in 1921. He had an outstanding record as a diver, being the first man to win both diving titles at the same Olympics and winning, in all, 10 AAU championships. He was never beaten in lowboard 1-metre competition. Al White served as a lieutenant colonel in World War II and later became city engineer in Richmond, California. He also served as AAU diving commissioner for the Pacific Coast.