Shaun White

Snowboarder

• Born: September 3, 1986
• Place of Birth: San Diego, California

SPORT: Snowboarding

Early Life

Shaun Roger White was born on September 3, 1986, in San Diego and grew up in Carlsbad, California. His parents, Kathy and Roger White, had two other children, Kerri and Jesse. As a young child, Shaun looked up to his brother, and as Jesse took to the slopes at June Mountain in California, so did Shaun.

At the age of five, Shaun was diagnosed with tetralogy of Fallot, a heart condition. He underwent two surgeries to help correct this problem. The American Heart Organization states that this disease can often limit activity, especially in competitive sports. The disease clearly did not have that effect on Shaun.

The Road to Excellence

Following, if not pushing, his brother, Shaun began snowboarding at a young age. The first time that Jesse was on a lift to snowboard, Shaun was there with him. Soon, Shaun showed that he was a natural. At the age of seven, he entered his first snowboarding competition. By the age of twelve, he had turned professional.

While snowboarding was Shaun’s primary focus, he also loved skateboarding. Living in California afforded Shaun the benefits of both the mountains and a temperate climate. When the weather got too warm to go snowboarding, he went skateboarding. As prodigious as he was at snowboarding, he was equally impressive on a skateboard. At the age of sixteen, he became a professional skateboarder.

The Emerging Champion

The advent of the X Games helped catapult White into mainstream American consciousness. The X Games are a nontraditional sports competition divided, much like the Olympics, into winter and summer contests. The Winter Games feature events such as skiing, snowboarding, and snowmobiling, while the Summer Games have sports such as skateboarding, bicycle motocross (BMX), and motocross.

The X Games began in 1995 and steadily grew in popularity. In 2002, White participated in his first X Games and won a silver medal in the superpipe event in snowboarding. He was sixteen at the time. The following year, he won his first gold medal. Starting in 2003, he won a gold medal in every Winter X Games through 2013 except 2007, when he won a silver medal. He did not compete in the 2014 or 2016 Winter X Games.

When the weather turned warm during summer in the Northern Hemisphere, White switched to skateboarding. Though he may have turned professional early, he did not begin competing in the Summer X Games until 2005. As he did in his first Winter X Games, he earned a silver medal in his first Summer X Games in the vert competition. The following year, after falling on his first run in the vert finals, White was in sixth place. However, he got back on the ramp and performed a nearly perfect run that shot him to the gold medal. He was the first X Games athlete to win gold medals in both the Winter and the Summer Games.

Continuing the Story

The X Games may be the main reason that White became known by the mainstream media, but he also competed on the snowboarding tour. He was victorious at events like the US Open Snowboarding Championships. He won three gold medals at the competition, including in 2008.

Perhaps White’s signature snowboarding victory came at the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy. He needed only his first run to win the gold medal—he posted such a good score that before his second run, he had already been assured of the gold. He repeated as gold medalist in the 2010 Winter Olympics, defeating his opponents by a wide margin. In 2012, he continued his dominance, earning a perfect score in the superpipe at the Winter X Games, the only person ever to do so. The 2014 Winter Olympics proved to be a disappointing one for White, as he placed fourth, and out of the medals, in the halfpipe. White’s appeal and success earned him sponsorships with snowboarding company Burton and with mainstream sponsors such as Red Bull, Oakley, and Target department stores. He has also dabbled in acting and music, playing guitar in the band the Bad Things.

White returned to Olympic competition when he qualified to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Despite sustaining an injury during practice in 2017 that resulted in sixty-two stitches in his face, White put on a dominant performance in Pyeongchang that brought home the gold medal in the men's halfpipe event—White's third Olympic gold medal.

White finished fourth in the 2021 FIS World Cup halfpipe event and received a bronze medal in the 2022 FIS World Cup Standings. He made his fifth Olympic appearance at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. Before his debut in the men's halfpipe event, White announced that the 2022 Olympics would be his last. White fell in his final run and finished fourth in the event.

Summary

Early in his career, Shaun White was dubbed the “Flying Tomato” because of his wild, long, red hair. Though he competed in two nontraditional sports, Shaun became an icon of his generation because of his unsurpassed skill and affable personality. At the time of his retirement, White was a five-time Olympian and a three-time Olympic gold medalist.

Bibliography

Abdo, Jenny. Shaun White. Fly! Abdo Zoom, 2023. 

Branch, John. "Shaun White Reaffirms Snowboarding's Worst-Kept Secret: This Is His Last Games." The New York Times, 5 Feb. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/sports/olympics/shaun-white-retire-last-games.html. Accessed 4 Mar. 2022.

Doeden, Matt. Shaun White. Lerner, 2007.

Hewson, Anthony K. Shaun White. SportsZone, 2019.

Higgins, M. “No Snow, but White Still Provides the Sizzle.” New York Times , 6 Aug. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/sports/othersports/06xgames.html. Accessed 20 June 2024.

"Shaun White." United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, www.teamusa.com/profiles/shaun-white. Accessed 20 June 2024.

Torres, John Albert. Shaun White: A Snowboarder and Skateboarder Who Cares. Enslow, 2014.