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  Home Page » Sports » National » White Weighs In Hes Strong

White weighs in: He's strong

Pagosa Springs man fifth at America's Strongest Man event

by Matthew Piper
Herald Sports Writer Few people in America can say they're stronger than Pagosa Springs' Marshall White. Four, to be exact.

White placed fifth in last weekend's 2009 America's Strongest Man in Morgantown, W. Va., a repeat of his finish in last year's less-competitive field.

"I feel good about that result," White said. "Being fifth in America ain't too shabby.

"In your face, 300-some-odd million Americans," he added with a chuckle.

White, who owns White's Family Funeral Home and does "everything but dig the graves," views strongman competitions as an outlet for his quiet, reserved demeanor at the office (where he says customers generally are more startled by his age, 27, than his hulking frame).

At 6-foot-3, 310 pounds, White can squat 715, deadlift 800 and bench press 480 pounds, and yet he's at the lighter end of his chosen pursuit.

"I'm known for being a more athletic guy," said White, who moved to Pagosa Springs this spring with wife Rachel.

Strongman is an amalgamation of every strength sport, with six to eight events measuring the power, endurance, agility and mental fortitude of its competitors.

White played football at high school in southern Texas, "because in Texas, every kid plays football," but he never took a liking to the local pastime, and he was watching ESPN one day when he saw footage of legendary strongman Magnus Samuelsson at the World's Strongest Man competition.

"I thought, 'That's what I want to do,'" he said.

(White beat Samuelsson at an event last May in Sequim, Wash., and felt so bad that he almost apologized to his idol.)
After receiving some crucial pointers from family friend and strongman Floyd Wilder, White began training with a local conglomerate known as "The Unit."

One of his first training partners, who White actually introduced to the sport, was this year's runner-up to winner Derek Poundstone in Morganstown, Travis Ortmayor.

With ample physical tools and unusually elite training partners, White picked things up fast.

"I've never been bad," White said. "I was always at the top end of the competitions, so there was a little bit of a shock (from other competitors) at first."

Despite the early success, White took a two-year hiatus for school at the Commonwealth Institute of Mortuary Science outside Houston.

He moved to Port Angeles, Wash., for work at a funeral home in 2005, where he finally began a serious effort to become the World's - one and only - Strongest Man. He clinched his pro card by winning Hawaii's Strongest Man in February 2006.

But even if White is a natural, it's far from an easy road to the top.

When he began competing, White was taken aback by the amount of food he needed to consume. He went from spending about $300 a month on groceries to $1,000, eating roughly 7,500 calories a day.

Another important lesson learned from Wilder was, of all things, welding.

In order to train to be able to lift, say, two refrigerators, White had to start by creating adjustable "implements" - the name for any strongman apparatus - in his own backyard.

Hence, the blowtorch.

White even molds his own Atlas stones, an implement at which he ranks among the best in the world.

"The first time I ever touched the stones, I moved all of them," he said. "You just feel awesome when you do it. It's something they did centuries ago. You feel like a freakin' man."

White's daily workout consists of working on one major movement at the gym - usually deadlift or squat, and adding five or six accessories to that movement. He also uses one of the implements each day.

White says his gym in Pagosa Springs has been very accommodating, allowing him to store his bulky creations and enduring the odd piece of broken equipment.

Local support has come from both Pagosa Springs and Durango, where a tire dealership recently gave him a free tire to flip.

Also helping White through his grueling tasks is the memory of mentor Jesse Marunde, who died at age 27 from a genetic heart defect while training in Washington two years ago.

"That was a pivotal moment," White said. "I feel like Jesse's always watching."

White is more confident about reaching his goal after his recent performance on the national stage. The location for the World's Strongest Man will be announced in late September, but White said he isn't as concerned with the locale as most others.

"Moving to Colorado was probably the best decision, athletically, I've made," he said.

White's endurance is his strong suit, and he's not fazed by altitude change like most of the other athletes.

He can now count himself firmly among the world's elite after clinching a spot in the World's Strongest Man finals with his win in Romania two weeks before the America's Strongest Man.

The biggest misconception about strongmen, White said, is that they're unintelligent.

"Just about every strongman keeps a second job," White said. In West Virginia, a lawyer and a rocket scientist were among his competitors.

Another common fallacy, White says, is that strongmen are on steroids, although he concedes it can be tough to regulate athletes from countries where laws differ.

Still, White believes the playing field is pretty even.

"I don't know that they have an advantage," White said. "They don't live in America. They can't just go to the supermarket and get some Grade A beef."

mpiper@durangoherald.com'>mpiper@durangoherald.com