Whitehead's accidental career
Skip to the fourth minute to hear how his career started!
Whitehead moved to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth to study at the University of Cape Town and his intention was to play in the Res league.
"I went to study at UCT and I was going to play Res rugby because I felt like I just wanted to play for enjoyment and the club offered me the bursary. I had Dobbo [John Dobson] and Fleckie [Robbie Fleck] as the backline coach, who helped out and it went pretty well.
"I remember Fleckie telling me 'you small and you light but you exciting, so if you want to make it, you should really give it a go.' From there it snowballed into a career that I completely did not expect.
"I retired at 28 and I don't regret a day of my career. I think the reason why I never embarked on the career decision straight out of school was because I didn't believe it was possible because I was always so much smaller than everybody.
"Fleckie really helped me believe that it's not about size. I guess I just took a chance and went for it," he said.
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