Shaun White has arguably become the face of snowboarding after many years of success. However, becoming the man in the snowboarding sphere was a bumpy road.
Secret Base is a sports analysis channel, and one of its top series is Beef History, which analyzes all-time great rivalries. A new video from Secret Base covers Shaun White’s rise and the reasons some opposed the brand and swagger he brought to the sport.
Ultimately, White was always an outsider in the sport. He made it to the big stage in his teenage years, with his parents sacrificing everything to help him compete. That meant he couldn’t participate in apres social activities at first, leaving him isolated. It was Mountain Dew for him back in those days.
Following that, his consistent success also went against the snowboarding’s traditional mindset of rooting for your buddies and helping them grow. White pushed himself to be the best ever, which seemed contradictory to the snowboarding movement that advocated collaboration and uplifting one another. However, when you look at various sporting greats (Brady, Jordan, Vonn, etc.), White’s mindset is very similar, which is what made him one of the best snowboarders ever.
I do think the video misses some key details, such as his Gold Medal win in 2018, White literally being at the current Olympics to be a correspondent and root on other athletes, and him creating a sports league to help grow snowsports (The Snow League). Regardless, I found some great historical anecdotes that helped me learn more about snowboarding’s history and White’s role in it. As demonstrated by a recent thread on r/snowboarding, he remains a divisive figure in the sport.
Image/Video Credits: Shaun White, Secret Base
