It should come as no surprise that whenever a Georgia Tech fielder botches a play Matt White is going to dog him.

It figures; White is a student at the University of Georgia.

"If we boot one, he does this thing he calls the air guitar, and basically just embarrasses us," said Tech third baseman Brad Feltes. "It's like he owns us, or he dominated us. I don't know, really."

Tuesday night will offer opportunities when Tech plays Georgia at Turner Field, and White will have a great view — coaching first base for the Jackets.

Should the Jackets (36-15, 14-13 ACC) win and fare well in their regular season-ending series this weekend at Virginia, they can boost their case to host an NCAA regional. Georgia (32-16-1, 18-6-1 SEC) has clinched the SEC regular season title, and seems a lock to stage a regional at Foley Field.

But back to White. So what's a 29-year-old former national high school player of the year who still holds the record for biggest rookie signing bonus ($10.2 million) doing majoring in wildlife management at Georgia while air-guitaring at Tech?

He's in his first season as a volunteer assistant, and he has the money to coach for free and chase two new dreams [be a wildlife habitat manager or a head coach] since his pro career was knifed to its end by surgeries.

"Wildlife biology is something I want to do. It just so happens that Georgia has one of the better schools," White said. "I have to have my degree in order to get a job [as a wildlife manager or head coach]."

So out comes the air guitar upon Tech mistakes, though only in practice.

When he coaches first base in games, the Jackets have something for White.

"We give him a hard time," said outfielder Chris House. "When we were [at Georgia last Wednesday], we told him they had a jersey for him in their dugout."

Tech won that game 11-1, and has won both meetings this season.

Once upon a time, White was nearly a Jacket, committing to Tech and coach Danny Hall in 1996. But San Francisco made White the No. 7 pick of that year's draft.

But White didn't end up at Tech, nor with the Giants. His agent, Scott Boras, found a loophole that said if a drafting team didn't offer a contract within 15 days, the player becomes a free agent.

Major League Baseball ruled that Boras was right. Teams lined up with checkbooks.

It helped that White was 6-feet-5, 230 pounds and threw 95 mph with a 0.65 ERA at Waynesboro Area (Pa.) High. The Devil Rays won the White lottery, paying him a still-record $10.2 million.

But three shoulder surgeries and one knee operation limited him to 122 minor league games, and injury knocked him off the '00 Olympic team. He last pitched in '03. "After your arm breaks down, other parts compensate," he explained.

White works chiefly with Tech outfielders, hits grounders to infielders, offers pitching tips, even hitting tips picked up from former teammates.

Last fall, he'd drive to Athens for classes three or four days a week, then commute to Tech's baseball practices.

This spring, he's handling schoolwork on-line, and at Tech he's a coach/counselor.

"He has seen it, and experienced it," Hall said. "He has a pretty good story to tell about himself and a lot of other talented guys who either have made it or not made it."

Two or three semesters from now, White hopes to have a degree from Georgia.

In the meantime, he's trying to keep Tech players loose with an edge, which may be the ultimate trick to playing this sport.

"Baseball is a failure sport. It's how you deal with those failures that is going to determine how you'll do over the long haul because it's also a duration sport," he said. "When I played, I had a lot of fun, and I want to let them know that if you take it too seriously, it will probably affect your play.

"I compete with whoever I'm hitting balls to, try to make them miss. If they miss, I start playing the guitar on them."

And when players make tough plays, "I play the drums, [Patrick Long] will play a cow bell or a piano or something," Feltes said.

So what's with the air guitar in the first place?

"I guess the new [video] game is 'Guitar Hero.' These guys play it all the time," White said. "It just makes them laugh. Instead of dwelling on the fact they missed the ball, they're watching me act like an idiot. It gets them to compete. I call them the Three Stooges band out there."