White Takes Fast Ride to the Top

When Shaun White first started snowboarding, he could zip down the halfpipe easily enough, but he was too young and much too small to keep lugging his board back to the top.

He looked around at all the big people and, like that, his problem was solved.

“I established this new thing where I’d get to the bottom and just jump on random backs and get a free ride back up,” he says with a laugh. “It was great.”

Ten years later, White, at 16, is 5 feet 6 and nearly 130 pounds. With his spindly legs finally developing into those of a man, he is already proven but still showing more promise than ever.

“Shaun White is just a freak of nature,” says Dave Downing, 34, like White a pro rider for Burton Snowboards. “On two feet, he’s just a goofy kid, but on a snowboard, or even a skateboard, he’s absolutely amazing.”

What’s amazing is that White, a freckle-faced redhead who probably never will be taken on first glance as an athlete, already has become one of the world’s top freestyle riders.

During the Winter X Games last January at Vail, Colo., he won silver medals in the superpipe and slopestyle events. At the World Snowboarding Championships a month later at Vail, he won the slopestyle competition and finished second in the superpipe.

He did not make the U.S. Olympic team but there are some who believe he should have, and White is among more than a few snowboarders puzzled by the judging during the qualifiers and Olympic events, both run by the International Ski Federation.

“It really disappointed me, not making it,” he says, sheepishly. “I was spending all that time at those contests, which were really bad contests, and not coming out in the end. It was really weird. Nobody really understood what was going on [with the judges].”

As if to prove a point, after the Olympic team was announced, White traveled to the X Games and outperformed all but J.J. Thomas of the U.S. team. Thomas won the gold at the X Games superpipe competition and went on to win the bronze at the Olympic halfpipe event.

When the next Winter Olympics roll around -- at Turin, Italy, in 2006 -- White will be 19 and fully developed physically, more than likely the strong favorite to win the halfpipe event.

That is, if he decides to try to make the team.

“We’ll have to see,” he says. “Maybe it’ll just kind of happen where I’ll say, ‘I’m going to go for it,’ and then really go for it.”

*

While others his age have been to, say, Disneyland, White has trouble keeping track of his travels.

“I’ve been to Japan, Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Norway, Australia ... did I say Japan?” he says, pausing to think during a breakfast interview.

“Oh, and I’ve been all over Europe ... to Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, France. I’ve got a big passport full of stamps.”

He has a favorite noodle house in Tokyo, “where they all know me and they always go like this when I walk in,” he says, patting a rust-colored mop that doubles as hair. “In Japan, everyone is so nice. You always know you’re going to have fun.”

He has a favorite beach in Costa Rica, although he can’t remember its name or location.

“But I was just amazed by it,” he says. “There were these huge iguanas walking down the street, just hanging out. I’m like, ‘This is crazy. What is going on?’ ”

He has disdain for the French, same as many American travelers seem to have.

“They won’t even look at you if you stop to ask them for directions,” he explains, poking his fork into a vegetable omelet. “From what I’ve seen, they’re just not very friendly people.”

But while White has seen more than the average 10th-grader, there is some concern, by his parents, anyway, that he’s missing out on things other kids enjoy while growing up.

He is enrolled in an independent study program and attends regular classes only when he’s home. He has not been to school dances or any school functions. He does not have a girlfriend -- “but he’s looking,” says Cathy, his mom -- nor does he have much in common with any of his male classmates.

He may be having the time of his life, but in his answer there is a hint of uncertainty.

“The way I feel about it is that I could be at school, doing the whole school deal, but I’m having so much more fun going on the road,” he says, glancing at his team manager as if seeking approval. “What am I missing? Am I better off hanging out at school with kids that aren’t interested in what I’m interested in, who don’t really skate and don’t really surf and stuff like that?

“Or am I better off being able to live like [skateboarding legend] Tony Hawk, hanging out with him and skating at the park or whatever, or going to Japan with [other pro riders] and snowboarding and stuff like that?

“There are so many more experiences to be gained by going on the road and around the world. I don’t think I’m really missing out on too much. The only thing I missed so far was sixth-grade camp. I was disappointed at first and then my friends said it wasn’t that great.”

His manager, Sean Lake, nods his approval and chimes in, “I did go to sixth-grade camp and it wasn’t that great.”

*

Snowboarding’s youngest superstar may not be the most popular athlete at Carlsbad High. In fact, because he’s away so much, he’s hardly recognized for what he is and does not attract much attention.

But White is, in all likelihood, the most successful current athlete on campus -- at least financially. He has earned gobs of money in contests and through sponsorships. He recently bought an ocean-front home just up the road from his favorite surf break. In his driveway is a truck he won by finishing as the overall champion of the Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding in 2001.

The only problem is, he can’t drive by himself because he does not have a driver’s license.

“I was late getting my [learner’s] permit so I won’t get my license till I turn 17,” he explains. “And I can’t drive with my mom because she freaks out and grabs the wheel and stuff. It’s scary.”

Cathy White laughs. What’s scary, she says, is that her son has a lead foot.

“He can’t not speed,” she said. “If he stops at one stop sign, he’s already looking ahead to the next one.”

Cathy keeps a close eye on her youngest child -- White’s brother Jesse, 22, and sister Kari, 17, are both standout snowboarders too, but never took the sport as seriously as Shaun.

The entire family has been supportive but Cathy has made the biggest commitment. She quit her job as a waitress so she could accompany her son during his travels, to events and other functions his career demands.

She makes sure Shaun keeps up with his schoolwork, driving him to libraries and hiring tutors. She tries to protect him from the undue influence of older riders, although she says they’re generally a good bunch.

“Mostly, I’m there because he’s still young and needs some family support,” she says.

Shaun’s dad, Roger, got the family into snowboarding and was one of those on whose back Shaun would climb on when he was small. Roger works for the city of San Diego and he and Cathy agreed that it made more sense for her to quit her job and accompany Shaun than for him to do it.

Shaun is “on the right track” to graduate from high school with others his age, Cathy says, thanks largely to an accommodating school district. White has earned art credit for his snowboard designs; he has earned economics credit for his handling of details associated with the purchase of his house, and he has earned math credit for the planning of his backyard.

“These are all real-life lessons a normal kid does on paper -- lessons about budgets and mortgages, things like that,” Cathy White says. “Shaun is just learning them in the real world, and he’s sometimes learning the hard way. I mean, he insisted on putting bamboo floors in his house because they looked cool, and now he’s finding out what a bad idea that was because they’re always cold and damp.”

Another lesson has to do with drugs and alcohol. So far, White seems to have earned a passing grade.

Asked how he bides his time during his travels, while many of the other pros are off partying, White offers an answer any 16-year-old can appreciate.

“It depends on where I am,” he says. “Like, if it’s [at a trade show] in Vegas -- and there’s nothing for me in Vegas -- the only thing I do is, like, go with a giant sack of change to the [video] arcade and just kill it -- just destroy the place.”