On February 11, the Washington Post had an article entitled “Shaun White, Olympic moments, and mettle without a color.” Staff writer Mike Wise wrote about the famed American Olympic gold medal winner in snowboarding, his two previous Olympics, and how he has failed in Sochi to continue his quest for a third medal in the men’s half-pipe.
As most of you know, the 27-year-old White was fondly called the Flying Tomato because of his long, thick, fiery red hair which he has now cut, giving him a boyish and preppy look.
In his early years, White always seemed to have an upbeat demeanor about who he was and what he did, but now he shows the maturity expected from most men his age.
Shaun has had some negative press lately, pointing at him as if he has become snobbish. It’s a “thing” that can happen to athletes and celebrities when suddenly they are catapulted into the limelight.
Mike Wise originally was on the attack mode, as he had planned to bring into the open what he felt about the Olympic star because he thought that maybe the Flying Tomato might think of himself as being bigger than life. He thought he would make Shaun White look like a bad boy to the fans.
Wise said, “I had heard Shaun White had become too big for his snowboard bindings. He wasn’t the cool kid we once called the Flying Tomato anymore, a thatch of reddish-orange hair rising 2 feet off a wall of ice.” He went on to say, “No, he was now the Descending Diva—S.W.E., Shaun White Enterprises, the $15-mil-per-year action sports icon— the world’s richest, most famous and now isolated extreme star. He needed to be put back in place, I thought. He needed to remember the, well, dudeliness that got him here. Then the story forked.”
Wise’s original intent was to deceive, but instead he refuted the tale with a story of reversal, from contempt to one of admiration.
Mr. Wise mentions some of Shaun White’s medical history as a young child survivor of two open-heart surgeries, which puts him in what is known as the “Zipper Club,” a hypothetical club of children whose chests have been surgically cut open. In addition to his family’s history, Shaun’s sister underwent 19 brain surgeries as a child.
Also, White gives 8 percent of his $15 million a year to the St. Jude’s children’s fund.
While waiting for Shaun’s snowboarding event to kick off, Mike Wise met two young fans of White’s. One, 10-year old Ben Hughes from St. Louis whose cancer, lymphoblastic leukemia, is in remission. The other, an older teenaged girl, Kaitlyn Lyles from Florida with a rare form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma, which also in remission.
Turns out Ben and Kaitlyn were there because of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Both were inspired by Shaun White’s performances from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and his love and drive to compete in the sport. Kaitlyn playfully vowed not to leave Sochi before she was Mrs. Shawn White!
In Wise’s article, he mentions that the original plan of the International Olympic Committee was that no one could come in contact with the athletes, except the media, and he was going to change that by picking up Ben and putting him over the fence separating the fans from the competitors.
In the end, he didn’t have to.
Wise points out that after Shaun spoke with the television media and was on his way to talk to the sports journalists, he came over to Ben and Kaitlyn to give high fives with a little hugging. Wise was overwhelmed and impressed with White’s recognition of his two fans. He watched the people around the area, who were very aware of what was going on, including the young fans’ parents. Wise said that there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd.
Later, after his less-than successful run and loss of podium bid, White said, “For me to be remembered in this sport, I don’t know if tonight makes or breaks my place in the sport. I would like to be remembered as more than a snowboarder. This is one big part of who I am, but it’s not all who I am.”
There may just be a moral moment to this tale.
“Never be too sure of where you’re going because you might just end up someplace else, crying on mountaintop with a mother whose child’s cancer is thankfully in remission, with a rich and famous action sports star who delivered the Olympic moment of his life on the day he failed to win a medal,” Wise said.
I have always given people the benefit of the doubt. In general, my feeling has been that there is more to people than what we see on the outside. And, generally speaking, most first impressions can be wrong and misunderstood.
White may not have won a coveted gold medal home, as he had envisioned himself doing, but he showed a lot of mettle as he walked away from a disappointing run and stopped to chat and recognize two young fans that had their Olympic dream come true at Sochi.
