Cool, yes, but also White-hot

From Vancouver, Canada — 

It was nearing midnight when he walked into the room, a kid in a black newsboy cap and checkered scarf, all red hair and childish smile, the class clown home from the high school dance.

Somebody asked Shaun White to describe his ability “in a nutshell.”

White immediately started moving his hands around his face in mock terror.

“Oh, no!” he said. “I’m in a nutshell!”

Somebody else asked him about the best parts of the Olympics.

“Honestly, it’s about getting our gear,” he said. “Half the fun is getting dressed up to go to lunch. It’s like, yeah, all this USA stuff, we’re on it.”

He was then asked about a tattoo on his left arm, and he turned, um, serious?

“I was basically at a tattoo shop, I was like, wow, I don’t know, it’s pretty cool,” he said.

“Then my dad showed up on a motorcycle, and I’m like, ‘I can’t back out now, my pops is here.’ ”

OK, OK, this middle-age guy admits it. In a Winter Olympics competed on ice and snow, nobody has been cooler than Shaun White.

If Lindsey Vonn is these Games’ American idol, White is their rock star, turning one minute in a snowboarding halfpipe into two weeks of buzz.

He has cool skills and a hip personality, yet he’s also nutty competitive, the perfect mix of snowboard culture and American professional sports culture.

Unlike other snowboarders who use their lifestyle as an excuse for apathy when they lose, White says that although he enjoys the journey, he knows it’s about the destination.

“Once you’re at the top of the pipe is when it changes,” he said. “Once you get in that position to actually win a medal, it’s go. You don’t think twice about it.”

And so he goes, higher and crazier than his competitors, more approachable and real than his fellow champions, his shaggy red hair and boyish wonder making him as much stuffed animal as snowboarding king.

He’s already finished competing, winning his second consecutive halfpipe gold medal earlier this week, yet he’s the only person anybody wants to discuss back home.

“Did you see Shaun White?” . . . “What is Shaun White like?”

Late Wednesday night, he was quite the show.

White had won his gold medal several hours earlier on Cypress Mountain, he had already held several media sessions there, yet he still rode an hour back to the main media center in Vancouver for one final gathering just before midnight.

He waved to the tiny media crowd when he strutted into the room, and immediately launched into a human take on another immortal run.

“To have all eyes on me and have all this pressure, so much going on, I can’t even talk about how much I’ve been thinking about this, I can’t even sleep at night, I’m so happy it’s over,” he said, pausing. “Yeah, man, make my parents proud.”

When asked what he was going to do next, he turned to teammate and bronze medalist Scott Lago.

“What do you want to do next, man?” he said.

“Party!” said Lago.

“That’s his quote,” said White. “It’s going to be next to your face in the paper, dude, and you don’t even know it.”

Sure enough, a night later, Lago was photographed in a public place with a woman kissing his medal in an inappropriate fashion, and he immediately left town.

So far, anyway, White has never been busted like that. He’s one of sports’ most public figures, yet he rarely messes up in public.

Contrary to stereotype, he recently told Playboy magazine that he didn’t even smoke pot, although that didn’t stop him from referring to swimmer Michael Phelps as “Smoke on the Water.”

Who else would spend his midnight gold-medal news conference talking about the effect of his sport on his family?

“For me, it was something that brought my family together, it was my life, hanging out with Mom and Dad and [my] sister and brother on the road, doing these events. It was a lifestyle, brought our family closer, made it what it is today,” he said.

Who else, in the next breath, would then lobby for an invitation to the White House?

“You know what’s cool, I’ve seen other Olympians do this, go meet the president of the United States,” he said, smiling. “I’m free for dinner.”

A decade ago, it would be absurd to think that the White House would host a snowboard champion. Today, it is amazing to think that Shaun White has not already been there.

“It’s such a fun sport, I think everyone should enjoy it, I’m proud to be a spokesperson for it, help us get to the next level, which I think we’re at,” said White. “I think we did it.”

White paused, then finished his thought with the same flourish he finishes his runs.

“We’re out of the nutshell,” he said, laughing, and a new world laughs with him.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

twitter.com/billplaschke