Putting Shaun White and Travis Pastrana in perspective

Travis Nicholson
August 3, 2011

Over the past weekend, Shaun White and Travis Pastrana were busy adding to their own legends at the 17th annual X-Games in Los Angeles, California.

The popularity of the X-Games has grown steadily since they began in 1995. Sponsorship for and attention towards the ESPN-owned mega-event has skyrocketed, throwing once-called “extreme” sports into the mainstream and making household names out of the X-Games’ biggest athletes.

This year the X-Games took over the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. With the mammoth 50- and 70-foot skateboard vert halfpipes taking up the nearby Nokia Theater, skate and BMX street courses were built outside in direct vicinity of the venue, and a proper rallycross course replaced the normally busy Figueroa Street. Inside the Staples Center were the motocross venues: massive dirt jumps that would be transformed into an amazing Enduro X course for the games’ epic finale on Sunday.

It was a fitting venue for two X-Games legends to make history.

At the age of 24, Shaun White is the premier “alternative” athlete on the planet. Already the first to compete (and win) in both the summer and winter X-Games, White once again set himself apart from everyone else in the short history of the event by winning his 20th gold medal, which nicely complements the two Olympic golds for snowboard halfpipe he won in Torino and Vancouver.

This is not to mention the millions of dollars from sponsors and video games, as well as bragging rights to have landed tricks no one else has (in a sport that White considers his second best, no less). You’d think this kid would have endless swagger and an ego to match, and he absolutely does, but it’s hard to take him seriously with all that red curly hair.

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On Saturday, in the skateboard vert final – always one of the X-Games biggest events – White needed a big run of 91.66 to top Pierre-Luc Gagnon for gold.

And White nailed it. On the ESPN broadcast, Tony Hawk, the legend of legends in skateboarding, was quick to anoint White, saying, “Shaun has got the power”. Finishing with a smooth 700, into a 540 varial and finishing with a heelflip to frontside 540, Hawk said quite simply, “That’s the best run we’ve seen. If the judges don’t say so, I don’t care”.

The judges agreed, giving the curly-haired ginger a 93 and his first trip back to the top of the vert podium since he won it in 2007. White raised his finger in the air to a standing ovation in the Nokia Center with the three-time defending skateboard vert champ, Canadian Pierre-Luc Gagnon, unable to top him.

To make the decision to trade snow for rubber after the snowboard season in May – albeit temporarily – took courage. The skills involved in snowboarding and skateboarding are obviously similar, but to go up against the very best in pro skateboarding and not make a fool of himself is a feat in itself. Though he was himself a defending champion, White’s chances were discounted in favor of Gagnon. Gagnon was favored, if not expected to win gold, which makes White’s feat that much more impressive.

Shaun White’s dual sport achievements are unprecedented, comparable only to Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders if they had MVP seasons in both of their respective sports in the same calendar year. For him to make the switch is one thing, for him to dominate is another.

Not to the outdone by The Flying Tomato, Travis Pastrana may have even been the bigger story of the 2011 Summer X-Games.

At the beginning of the X-Games on Thursday, Pastrana declared that the next four days would be a “Pastranathon” of car racing and motorcycle stunts. The legendary No. 199, age 27, is already a Motocross legend, but has since taken up everything from rallycar to base jumping to NASCAR. Like Shaun White, Pastrana is also awaiting his Bo Jackson comparisons.

On Thursday, Pastrana took the stage of the Moto X Best Trick contest and tried to pull off the same trick that foiled him in 2009: a rodeo 720, a single backflip with two full rotations… on a 250cc motorcycle. After two attempts, Pastrana failed to land the trick, instead breaking his fibula and tibia when the 200-plus-pound bike crashed on his leg after the second attempt.

Something as small as a broken leg would not end the Pastranathon.

By Saturday, Pastrana’s Subaru mechanics had rigged his Impreza rally car with hand controls so that Travis could still compete in the RallyCross events. He would be able to control the 550-horsepower car without the use of his leg, which would be immobilized and covered in foam padding for protection. Pastrana and his crew likened the new controls to a video game, and on Saturday afternoon he and his Subaru team tested out the new hand throttle system on an LAPD test course for two hours.

On Sunday, after being cleared by X-Games physicians, Pastrana was able to sneak his way into the rallycross final by outlasting the competition and placing second in a qualifier. In the final, he would ultimately come in fourth place. Impressive to simply get in and out of the car, Pastrana took the tight corners and airborne jumps of the converted downtown Los Angeles track with precision and skill.

The pain was apparent on his’ face when talking on-camera with ESPN after qualifying for the final

“I can feel all the bones moving around in my ankle every time I even breathe,” Pastrana told the cameras, “so this is gonna be a? hey, you only live once.”

As the No. 199 Subaru skid into the wall on the final turn, turning bronze medal hopes into a fourth-place finish, Pastrana emerged from the car hopping and holding his broken leg, before simply lying down on the ground in agony.

While he didn’t technically win a single thing at the 17th Summer X-Games, Travis Pastrana’s toughness, competitive drive and desire to perform for his audience became legendary.

But where do the superstars of these niche sports stack up against team sports superstars like LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Derek Jeter and Christiano Ronaldo? More appropriately, how do White and Pastrana stack up against individual sport athletes like Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt?

Action sports like skateboarding, snowboarding and motocross have tremendous popularity, but still nothing in comparison to the NFL or NBA. Yet, Pastrana and White each make well into eight figures per year off of sponsorships and endorsements, similar to the ways Woods and Roger Federer have been able to build their personas into lucrative and high-profile sponsorships.

Despite the best efforts of marketers, there are still elements of so-called action sports that are “underground” or “alternative” – even if its hard for those words to mean anything anymore. While the corporate and fan attention is there, sadly the X-Games still fail to gain the same respect as the team sport athletes.

In some way aren’t Shaun White and Travis Pastrana more impressive, as they create the very basic elements of their sports that will endure and live on? In the same way fans of a certain generation can look back at the invention of something like basketball’s alley-oop with historic reverence, today’s fans of the X-Games may see Pastrana’s double-blackflip or White’s 720 melonball in the same manner.

While the dirt is trucked from the Staples Center, ramps dismantled and Figueroa Street cleared once again for traffic, Shaun White and Travis Pastrana are planning the next moves in their careers. For Pastrana, this means surgery on his broken leg and rehabilitation that will likely kill all of his NASCAR ambitions for the foreseeable future. For Shaun White, the snow will soon start to fall in his custom half pipe in Colorado, where he will soon have to defend his snowboard crown.

At 24 and 27, both of their futures are as bright as their courage is endless. It’s time for mainstream sports fans to take notice.

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The Author:

Travis Nicholson

Travis Nicholson is a writer and graphic designer who started writing online in the 90s amidst a haze of bad haircuts and NBA Jam on the shores of Lake Erie.