Shaun White's Business is Red Hot

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Photograph by Martin Schoeller

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Photograph by Martin Schoeller

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Inside the White House

As the sports of snowboarding and skateboarding have grown, so too has the power of Shaun White and his impact on the action-sports industry. It's now hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. Shaun has drawn in outside players who have helped expand once-fringe pursuits into multibillion-dollar endeavors. And charting his gravitational field has become akin to the Kevin Bacon game: Shaun White meets Mark Ervin through IMG and connects with Target. Target sponsors White, spends millions on advertising, raising awareness of skateboarding (and, because it's Shaun, snowboarding), and eventually produces his clothing line. White's Target connection eventually leads to a limited-edition Ubisoft game in which players not only meet in the Target Chalet but also outfit themselves in gear from Burton and Oakley. Meanwhile, White sponsor Red Bull produces a documentary that appears on MTV, which has a partnership with NBC to produce the Dew Tour that NBC is broadcasting live in multiple cities for both summer and winter events. And here come the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, which could just crank the whole cycle up another notch.

On hearing these connections laid out, White responds, "Impactatious!"

He is sharing his admiration for Don King's facility with the language. "That's the way he described a boxer's punch. Impactatious. You can just see him making a fist and holding it there way too long," White says, holding up one of his own.

White is aware of the double-edged nature of exponential growth. He knows he has critics, those who see size as the enemy of cool. But he's okay with it. "I'm still pretty young and just winging it, but on a different level. I'm not really worried about the haters, the Buzz Killingtons," White says. "I had a friend come up to me, an older guy whose wife is in the industry. I'd tell you his name, but he'd love it too much. He'd be like, 'Yeah, that's right!' But he'll know who he is. Anyway, he came up to me after all the Olympic interviews and he said, 'Thanks for making it look legit.' I didn't get it at first, but it was respect. He said I was 'solid' as the voice of this group. It was wild. I have friends who are pro photographers who have shot snowboarders for years and years, and their moms would call them and say, 'I saw that Shaun guy. That's what you do?' It was just a weird take on it. It made me nervous. I thought I could have blown it so hard so many times. I could have said anything. Blood wicking!"

White knows that size can be the enemy of cool. "I'm still pretty young and just winging it, but on a different level," he says. "I'm not really worried about the haters."

Before Shaun White was a year old, he had open-heart surgery three times to correct a congenital defect known as tetralogy of Fallot. Surgeons had to open a ventricular tract, repair valves that were leaking blood, and suture a number of holes to increase blood flow through the cardiac circuit. "Obviously, I don't remember any of it," says White. "And maybe one day, I'll be more interested in the details, but I haven't been that curious." It could be argued that what didn't kill him has made him stronger.

After lunch in New York, White heads next door to Freemans Sporting Club, a menswear shop heavy on tweeds and boiled wool, operated by the restaurant's owners. In the back is a traditional barbershop where customers can get a straight razor shave or a haircut. Before doing anything, White asks about retail protocol, adding with a laugh that he's only just begun buying clothes. "In the past, nearly everything I wore came from sponsors," he says.

White picks out a fitted flannel shirt and a peacoat made from the same fabric used in British Royal military jackets. He emerges from the dressing room wearing the flannel unbuttoned, rocker style. If you look closely, you can faintly see the beginning of a scar that as an infant must have run the length of his torso.

Earlier, a question had come up about that scar, whether it had any special, mystical powers, like Harry Potter's lightning bolt. Did it tingle or burn when he was approached by companies that are the wrong fit for him? At the time, he just laughed and said, "That's funny. I definitely understand tingles ..." and then artfully changed the subject.

As he tries on the peacoat, the salesman explains that the buttons are made from ox horn and are basically unbreakable. (Jesse laughs, "If anyone can break them ...") White flips up the collar and checks himself out in the mirror. The coat fits like it was custom-made; he looks at Jesse, who confirms its coolness. Shaun breaks into a broad, confident smile -- the same smile he flashes when he eventually comes back to the question he seemed to be trying to avoid. "Actually," he says, "my scar starts to tingle when I connect with companies I want to work with."