I always get way more emotional about sports when I have a personal connection to one of the athletes. So you can imagine that watching someone I actually know win the gold medal was almost more than I could handle. Let’s just say when Shaun White cried after his Olympic halfpipe victory, I cried too.
OK, fine. I was bawling. I fell off the couch onto the living room rug, burying my face in my arms and kicking and sobbing while I tried to contain myself. Granted, I’m a total sap and will cry over McDonald’s commercials and bad movies on Lifetime, but this was big.
It’s just that I’ve seen White compete since he was 9 years old. He burst onto the scene as a child prodigy from San Diego who was first discovered when he was 6 years old at a YMCA skate park in Del Mar, Calif., the breeding ground for top pro skaters. Coming from skateboarding, snowboarding was easy for him from the start. It was quite a sight, this tiny little redhead riding down a halfpipe with walls at least three times as tall as he was.
Shaun’s mom, Kathy, also has been there since the beginning. She’s dragged her young son to contests all over the world for the past decade, (and vice versa). She’s the quintessential cool Southern California mom, spitting slang and hanging out with all the boys.
I stood next to her and the rest of the White family clan during the Winter X Games, which is always the best seat in the house. She knows it all: the athletes, their weaknesses and strengths, their history. She cheered on all the competitors like they’re her own, mostly because they practically are after all the years of attending snowboarding events.
She told me that the up-and-coming riders such as Mason Aguirre (who, at 18, is the youngest member of the U.S. team) used to compete with Shaun back when they were in the under-10 category in the USASA amateur events. Shaun ascended the ranks early, but they’ve all caught up with him now.
Kathy White didn’t seem to care if Shaun won or lost the X Games.
“Be safe, be safe, be safe,” she chanted as he’d come down during each of his three runs. “Let’s just get to Torino.”
Seeing the White family hugging and crying (albeit a whole day after it all went down in Italy) was almost more than I could handle. The networks are really good at playing up the personal stuff during the Olympics, probably so people like me will tune in instead of watching “Sex and the City” reruns on TBS or taking a bath and reading “Us Weekly” like I usually do.
Essentially, they turn the thing into a soap opera and play up the drama and create the celebrities for shallow people like me to appreciate. So seeing the “Shaun White: This Is Your Life” reel, not to mention the one-on-one interview with Bob Costas, is some of the best television I’ve seen since “Sex and the City” wrapped up its final episode.
Speaking of getting emotional, I will admit that I cannot be a good sport about Aspen home girl Gretchen Bleiler coming home with less than gold in women’s snowboard halfpipe. I can play favorites. I can say a silver medal is nothing to scoff at. But it hurt to see Bleiler’s longtime rival, Hannah Teter, standing on top of the podium.
Bleiler has consistently dominated Teter for the past two seasons, and snowboarding or not, I just like Gretchen better.
I’ve interviewed Teter on several occasions, and I can say without any hesitation that she is a bona fide brat. Granted, it’s part of her shtick. She’s the punk kid (19 years young), the tomboy, the kid sister (her two older brothers, Abe and Elijah, also are heavily involved in the pro circuit) and the recluse Vermonter. Granted, she rips. But she’s also the most obnoxious athlete I’ve ever interviewed, mocking my questions and coyly coming up with senseless answers she knows I won’t use.
Bleiler is Aspen’s own little darling, the blond-haired, blue-eyed halfpipe dominatrix who – until the Olympics – has consistently demonstrated the flawlessness of a winning streak: the poise, the confidence and a mind-boggling appearance of effortlessness.
She’s also got those All-American good looks: the ruddy cheeks, white teeth, that broad cheerleader’s smile – a Wheaties cereal box waiting to happen. I know her parents, even met her grandmother. Contrary to Teter’s punk attitude, Bleiler is literally the girl next door (she does in fact, live in my neighborhood). So shoot me. I’m biased.
That’s the part of the Olympics you have to love and hate. This one event is so all-important to these athletes that it virtually makes them or breaks them.
If you’re anything like me, whether they win or lose, you better have that box of tissues ready.
Freelance columnist Alison Berkley can be reached at alison@berkleymedia.com.
