San Diego Teen Going Places as a Top-Flight Snowboarder

As a rising star in professional snowboarding, you have to learn how to travel as well as perform high-powered moves such as big McTwists, Indy grabs and Rodeo flips.

And sometimes you learn the hard way.

Shaun White, for example, discovered on his first trip to Japan a couple of years ago that when dining on sushi for the first time, you should not eat the whole glob of wasabe in one bite.

“My whole head started burning and it went all the way through my nose,” he says, cringing at the recollection. “I had to put my head between my legs because it was burning so much. I thought my head was going to explode.”

White, though only 14, is wiser now. Having returned earlier this week from his fourth trip to Japan to compete in an event sponsored by the Burton team for which he rides, White says he now prefers noodle dishes to raw fish, because noodles don’t bite back.

But now that he is back home, he doesn’t have to concern himself with any of this stuff. The eighth-grader from San Diego needs only to try to keep up with the older guys, something he has done surprisingly well so far, in this his first full season as snowboarding’s youngest pro.

Though only 4 feet 11 and 100 pounds, he is considered one of the top contenders in the Superpipe event during the second stop of the Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding, in progress through Sunday at Snow Summit in Big Bear Lake. That’s saying a lot since the Triple Crown--which also includes Snowboard Cross and Big Air disciplines--boasts an international field of more than 200 riders, competing for a purse of $125,000.

“There are a ton of kids just as good at free-riding, but Shaun is the first to break the mold,” says Todd Richards, 33, a veteran pro from Encinitas. “Instead of being a real good snowboarder for a little kid, he’s just a real good snowboarder.”

So good, in fact, that White nearly upstaged Richards during the first leg of the Triple Crown two months ago in Breckenridge, Colo. The diminutive redhead led the Superpipe after two rounds before being edged by Richards in the final.

A month later, White was competing in the Winter X Games at Mt. Snow in Vermont, again against the world’s best. His 11th-place finish, though not nearly as impressive, was further evidence that this kid is going places--perhaps even to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

“That’d be cool,” he says.

Perhaps not as cool as the shopping sprees in Tokyo toy stores, the trip to Norway to compete in the Arctic Challenge and fish for cod, or the team-sponsored adventure to Costa Rica to get away from the snow and to surf where the jungle meets the sea.

Those trips were “rad.” And in Costa Rica, he said, “There were giant lizards and everything.”

Very cool, White adds, are all his frequent-flier miles. In fact, he might be the only pro snowboarder to have used his miles to upgrade his mom to business class. But then he’s probably the only pro snowboarder who travels to contests with his mom.

“I thought it was very nice of him,” says Cathy White, who quit her job as a waitress so she could act as chaperon for her impressionable young son.

After all, snowboarders have not totally shaken their image as rebellious sorts who are as fond of hash pipes as they are of halfpipes.

“I sent him to Costa Rica alone, but that was the last time,” Shaun’s mother says. “After that I reiterated that he still needs to be a boy and that there’s plenty of time to be an adult later. Being with us helps him realize that.”

White wasted no time learning how to snowboard. He traded in his skis when he was 6, during a trip to June Mountain, and his mother and father knew then and there that they had a special athlete on their hands.

“Shaun just took off and started jumping with it,” Cathy recalls. “He was such a natural that he started competing in amateur national events at age 7.”

He started dominating them so thoroughly by the time he was 12 that he and his parents decided it was time to go pro, although on a limited basis because of school.

Now White is in an independent study program at Oak Crest Junior High. He studies at home and on the road and mails in his assignments. His mother says he’s pulling down solid Bs while pushing forward with his snowboarding career.

“Shaun White was an active snowboarder back when I was in my heyday,” says Circe Wallace, a former pro and general manager of athlete management for The Familie, a Carlsbad company that represents performers in so-called alternative sports.

“He is pretty much a little prodigy. It has gotten to the point now where he’s a major contender in major events.

“It’s exciting because he’s going up against the top tier of competition in a sport where the median age is around 30. Shaun will be an Olympic competitor, if not in [the 2002 Olympics] then in the one after that--or even the one after that.”

Meanwhile, the only thing holding the kid back is the lack of power in his young legs.

“We’re still waiting for man legs to kick in,” Cathy says. “You have to realize that he’s just now starting to reach puberty.”

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Among top male snowboarders in the Triple Crown lineup are defending champion Ross Powers, Dan Kass, Richards and Gian Simmen, a Swiss halfpipe specialist who won the gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

Among top female competitors are defending champion Ine Poetzl, Leah Wagner, Tricia Byrnes and Cara-Beth Burnside (of Orange).

Superpipe qualifying and big-air practice is scheduled today; superpipe second rounds and finals are scheduled Saturday; and big-air semifinals and finals are slated for Sunday.

The third and final leg of the series is scheduled March 29 through April 1 at Sierra-at-Tahoe. Competitors earn points from their highest-scoring discipline at each venue and the rider with the highest total will be crowned champion.

NEWS AND NOTES

* Hall pass: The annual Fred Hall Fishing Tackle and Boat Show, which marks the unofficial start of the spring fishing season, will run March 7-11 at the Long Beach Convention Center.

More than 1,500 booths featuring products and angling destinations, hourly seminars and the kids-fish-free trout pond are on tap. Hours are 2-10 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $10, free for children under 12.

* Water-logged: Irvine Lake will benefit from this week’s storm in a big way. The popular Orange County fishery will receive 20 vertical feet of water from the Serrano Irrigation District. The bad news is that the storm caused postponement of the grand opening of the five-acre camping and fishing lagoon from Saturday to March 3.

* Top dog: In an attempt to determine whether pointing breeds or flushing breeds are best suited for hunting upland game, the San Gabriel Valley Chapter of Quail Unlimited is holding its 13th Gun Dog Showdown on March 10 at Prado Dog-Training Area. It will feature planted chukar “to better simulate an actual hunting environment.” Admission is $9 per adult or couple. Registration is $40 per dog. Details: (909) 624-7411.

WINDING UP

“It’s so good they’re practically jumping in the boat” is something you want to hear while on a fishing trip, not a whale-watching excursion.

But on one such trip Wednesday off Kauai, a small humpback whale almost did jump in a boat. It leaped onto the railing, bounced off a woman, slipped back into the water and swam away.

The woman was treated for chest pains and a knee injury, and held for observation at Kauai Veterans Memorial Hospital.

“It just came out of the blue,” Doug Phillips, co-owner of Na Pali Eco Adventures, told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The vessel was carrying 35 passengers.

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* FISH, SKI REPORTS: D15