Todd White

Every year I go to Santa Barbara with my family. My parents and all my brothers and sister and everyone's kids. Every year we drive down the coast and I point up towards the white fence and say "Tom Sims lives up there, should we call him?" This year my family (20 people) joined our long time family friends, the Greenbergs and it was a group of 40 people, spouses, kids, grandparents.....mayhem. This is one of the most difficult things I have written. When Ed asked if I would do an interview, it had only been a few hours since I heard the news that Tom Sims had died. I told Ed I would do it, but give me some time to collect my thoughts. By the time I did the interview I had a pretty good idea of the emotions I was feeling and why I was feeling those particular emotions. As soon as the camera was recording, I pretty much lost it as my mind went blank and numb and I'm still not sure of what I said. So let me say first that my thoughts and love and support are with Hilary and their kids and all of the Sims family. The emotions of overwhelming sadness come from realizing Tom was truly a good guy and not deserving of the harsh treatment I threw his way. It's not guilt, just realizing we could have had more positive times if I would have treated him different. Don't get me wrong, we had our share of positive times, particularly in 1987 when I was riding some Sims boards. He took a photo of me at Wolf Creek during a session me, Craig, and a number of other Sims riders were in on. That photo was printed in ISM. Hearing Tom yell "YEAH!!!" when you exploded off the lip was such a rush and I was just reminded of that yesterday when I saw Todd Richards post up on Facebook how rad it was to hear Tom scream when you nailed a trick. When I gave him shit at the first Mt Baker Banaked Slalom in 1985 for thinking he would set a regular footer's course, Tom immediately offered to let me set the course with him. It was pretty much his contest along with Bob Barci (RIP) and they could have told me to get lost. Instead, Tom invited me to set the course with him. A week after Baker, I blew my knee out and was done for the season, which meant I would miss the only two major contests, the Nationals and the Worlds. I went to Vermont for the Nationals, which was renamed the US Open that year, and filmed the event. After the contest, on the bus ride from Manchester to Albany, Tom and I got into a heated discussion about fair courses and running a contest fairly. He said if I wanted to, I could run the Worlds. So I did. With his blessing. I was a Burton team rider in the days when Burton vs Sims was pretty dramatic. That's the kind of guy Tom was, he wanted to make it even and he was willing to potentially compromise the quality of his event by letting an outsider run things. I was overwhelmed by emotion because Tom and I respected each other in spite of our friction. Pretty much every time in the past 10 or 15 years that I have spoken with Tom, he has always given warm regards and always said to say hello to my wife. I was overwhelmed by emotion because Tom was my friend. I feel badly that Tom always felt he needed to defend himself. In the end, there were so many things he achieved, I wish he realized how validated he is. I am really fortunate to have met and known him. About 5-6 years ago I did call Tom on our Santa Barbara vacation and brought my family to meet his family. It was really nice. We didn't talk about snowboarding, just hung out a bit and talked about family and the good things in life. It was time spent that was up there with epic powder runs. It may be difficult to understand if you weren't aware of the competitive side in snowboarding and the rivalry primarily between Burton and Sims. I was Tom's nemesis from the beginning, first because I thought skaters and surfers needed to understand the mountains if they wanted to ride the TC halfpipe. Then I was a Burton rider and always questioned the events. In the end, I was wrong for not welcoming Tom the first time I met him and not letting myself receive his warmth and kindness. I was afraid he would exploit snowboarding for his own profit, but he was just like everyone else, he wanted to shred as much as possible and he wanted to show the World how cool it is. He was damn good at that. On our Santa Barbara vacation this year with the Greenbergs, we ran into a little horse trouble and between fractured hips and concussions, combined with 40 people running wild, I neglected to call Tom as I had done 5 or 6 years earlier. Not really thinking about it, but obviously taking it for granted that I could see him any time I am down there. I'll regret not calling. Tom Sims was a friend and I finally realized how important he was to me as a human. I'll miss him forever.

• published: 15 Sep 2012
• views: 389