Most people don’t retire at 35. But then again, Shaun White has never been like most people. After all, this is an extreme sports superstar who began snowboarding at five, went professional at 13 and dominated the Olympics by 19; winning three gold medals and becoming a face of both snowboarding and skating, along the way earning that greatest of all time (Goat) moniker.
By the time his mid-30s rolled around however, even though he was still able-bodied and still some time away from that AARP membership, he knew he wanted to hang it up. “Retirement is a pretty ugly word,” says White to the Guardian from his home in Los Angeles. “This next chapter just feels like something new. It’s on to the next. I recently watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary [Arnold], and he was like, ‘I reached the top, and now I’m bored. What’s next?’ Some of that kind of hit home.”
It’s a spectacular climb which is now the subject of a documentary of his own in the form of Max’s Shaun White: The Last Run, a three-part series that traces the athlete’s rise from a child with a passion (no doubt fueled by a childhood heart defect), to a global athletic force, and yes, retirement, whether he likes that word or not.
But speaking to White, life off the board seems to suit him just fine. Donning a smile and a black long sleeve shirt from his new company Whitespace (more on that later), White is affable and talkative. You wouldn’t know he’s currently decompressing from an eventful few days.
“It’s funny, because my girlfriend just had a movie launch just as my documentary is premiering,” he says referring to his high-profile relationship with Vampire Diaries actor Nina Dobrev. “So I went to her premiere, and then I had a friends and family screening of mine.” But when he sat down to see his own story projected on the big screen, the man who accomplished so much admittedly had the jitters. “I was really nervous. I don’t know why. I know my life has been documented so much. Little snippets have been told, but this is the whole story. I had been asked to do this years before and I said, ‘Nah, it’s not the right time.’ [I’m not even sure] this is too soon, since I have so much I still want to accomplish.”
After thinking it over, White realized that since his path to glory began three decades ago when he was just a toddler, now would be as good a time as ever for his story to be told. It also didn’t hurt that Mike Tollin, a producer behind The Last Dance, the acclaimed ESPN docuseries about the sunsetting athletic career of another Goat, Michael Jordan, was involved.
“The hardest part is trusting the film-makers,” says White referring to the directing duo of Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau. “I met them and they were great people. I was thinking, ‘I can hang with them.’ If they’re around, I’d be able to open up and be vulnerable with them.” He also forfeited creative control. “I was involved in the editing process to a certain extent, but they finished it off. The cut that I saw when it was screened, there were a bunch of scenes I’ve never seen before. You have to trust the fact you like the people you’re working with, enjoy the process and let go.”
Stylishly edited with a pop soundtrack, the resulting series is an unflinching look that busts myths of the laid back nature of snow bums and skaters, or that White’s gift for athleticism is what propelled him. While the latter is no doubt, raw behind the scenes footage portrays him exhibiting real moments of fear, stress and uncertainty, all coupled with a relentless drive. “A lot was put out there like, ‘He won, he’s a machine, there’s no feelings.’ But there was so much more happening.”
White remembers an interview with Olympian Michael Phelps that hit a nerve. “He talked about how depressed he was after his [record-breaking] Olympic run, and I was so taken back by that, because I just assumed it was only me that felt that way,” he explains. “The Olympics are one day, and then you live four years to get the opportunity to do it again. It’s almost easier when you don’t win, and then you’re driven for the next time. It gives you meaning. For me to hear that, it gave a lot of peace and perspective to my life.”
Case in point: after failing to medal during the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the pressure, ironically, lifted for him. “I was having the time of my life,” he says in series.
The stunning danger of White’s sport is also on full display, with White living on the razor-thin edge of triumph, or after one wrong move, tragedy. In one scene, cameras go inside a hospital with White after a practice-run accident in 2018 which left him bloodied and with a head injury. Along the way, his parents were stubbornly supportive despite the risks.
“There’s a moment when I had a horrible crash,” he says, referring to one such mishap. “At the time, my mom, in an interview, said, ‘We just gotta get him back on a skateboard!’ And they were like, ‘You’re encouraging him to do this?” And she was like, “Yeah, of course!” A normal family would have locked me away and put me in bubble wrap to not get hurt. But she knew I loved it.”
After White’s final competition (he placed fourth in the halfpipe at last February’s Winter Olympics in Beijing), he sought advice from fellow retired athletes like Phelps as to what to expect. “They said that I’d want to fill the void or hole that sports gave me, but I need to relax and be OK with the nothingness and I’d eventually find something to focus on.”
Along with a leisurely travel schedule (he recently visited the Matterhorn in Switzerland), White is staying active with an array of disparate activities, including Whitespace, his eponymous board and apparel company he runs with his brother Jesse. White calls it an outlet for his competitiveness. “We’re thinking,‘ Who are the next talents?’ So it still keeps me involved, but in a different way.”
And true to the documentary’s motif of an incessant will to succeed, White recalls a recent contest he attended as a mere retiree and spectator.
“I sat at the bottom and was like, ‘I think I would have won this.’”
