Snowboarding phenom Shaun White started tearing up the slopes before his age hit double digits. He was starring in the CoolBoarders 4 video game before he was old enough to get a driver’s permit. Steady work for a guy who took his first rip on a snowboard when he was 6.
“I was into it for about a week,” White says of his first days with the sport. “By the time I turned 7, I wanted to do it all the time.”
White, now 14, has collected plenty of hardware from snowboarding championships. He won his first series of medals in 1995 at the U.S. Amateur Snowboarding Association nationals.
The snowboarder picked up the sport from his older brother, Jesse. He turned pro when he was 10, making him one of the youngest members on the
snowboarding circuit.
“The older guys have always been cool to me,” White says. “I hang out with them, mess with them. There’s always a lot to do and learn.”
White has endured plenty of bumps and bruises, including a fractured skull, broken hand and broken foot. But White takes it all in stride.
“It’s gonna happen,” he says. “You just wait it out and get back out there.”
As much as he loves to board, White plans to go to college and keep up on his education. “It’s important to me,” says White, who’s home-schooled when he’s competing.
White had a busy year in 2000, traveling to Japan for the Nippon Open and Norway for the Arctic Challenge. “I’m able to see a lot of the world,” he says. “You get to do what you love and see all these cool things. I’m pretty lucky.”
Of course, luck is only part of the equation. Others marvel at White’s natural talent, as well as his determination.
“There aren’t a lot of guys who do this with as much passion as Shaun White,” says veteran snowboard instructor Tim Windell, who began teaching a 7-year-old White at Windell’s Snowboard Camp in Mt. Hood, Ore. “And believe me, this is a passionate sport.”
SHAUN’S TIPS FOR GETTING ON BOARD
-Ask questions. “If you see someone doing something that
looks cool, ask him how to do it. … Most snowboarders asked a ton of questions when they were learning, so they’re always looking to help out someone who’s new.”
– Go for it! “Don’t worry about making mistakes, don’t worry about falling, don’t worry about looking like a fool. The best thing to do is to keep working at it.”
