Shaun White

Shaun White (blog.imgacademies.com)

My hero is Shaun White. He was born in San Diego, California in 1986. He grew up with five people in his family. They were his Mom {Cathy}, Dad {Roger}, sister {Kari} and brother {Jess}. One of the family's favorite pastimes was skiing. The family would take road trips to a local mountain. By the age of four, Shaun White was zooming down the mountain. Then Shaun White's mom put him on a snowboard and that encouraged him to go faster.

Shaun White snowboarding (michaeldunnblog.com)

Shaun White does not go to high school when he is traveling. He always has a strategy for snowboarding. As soon as he learned to snowboard, he stopped just going down hills and he started jumping.

When Shaun White was an amateur snowboarder, after winning five snowboarding titles, he became a pro. He became a pro snowboarder in 2000. For snowboarding and skateboarding, Shaun holds 16 X Games medals; ten are gold and six are bronze.

When Shaun White was six months old, he had a heart defect and needed surgery. Eight months later he needed it again. Could you imagine at six months old you have to have open heart surgery to fix a defect? And at the same time, Shaun White's sister had to have brain surgery.

I picked Shaun White as my hero because he is a person who never gives up. He inspires me and I wish I was like him. For snowboarding, I would like to get medals like him. It would be cool to be him with five Olympic snowboarding titles.