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Body in motion

Ex-Trojan has found stardom on the runway

By jason vondersmith

The Portland Tribune, Apr 29, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

Since signing with a big New York modeling agency in 2006, former all-PIL pitcher Chad White from Wilson High has been around the world, doing shoots with big fashion names like Dolce & Gabbana, Nautica and Abercrombie & Fitch.

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His whirlwind life in the fashion lane all started with a snap in his right elbow. After graduating from Wilson High in 2002, Chad White kept his baseball career alive by pitching for various summer teams.

One day, with a pro scout in the stands, he threw a pitch and, ‘Wow, I was throwing gas. It felt great. … Then I threw a curveball, and I heard ‘snap’ in my elbow and my arm went dead. I tried to throw another one, and it hurt so bad, it felt like Jell-O. I was in tears. It was my dream.”

White already had done some local modeling, but his big break in the business came one day before he was to enter the Navy in early 2006. That day, he got a call from his Portland modeling agent.

He was told that a major agency in New York City wanted to sign him. The company promised stardom, but all White could think about was his hurting elbow and dream of pitching in the major leagues.

“I came (to New York) to make $10,000 for the Tommy John (elbow ligament) surgery,” White says, “and I made the money, but I was in way too deep to stop.”

If you Google White on the Internet, you’ll see why many in the modeling business cannot take their eyes off the 23-year-old Southwest Portland native, who now lives in a Manhattan apartment. At the top of the Google search are three photos of him in bikini underwear, as he displays his lean and sculpted 6-2 athletic frame and winning smile.

One of his Major Model Management agents calls him “clearly, unquestionably, one of the top male models working in the world today” because of his appeal, charm, affability with photographers and willingness to work hard on his body and craft.

White has met Michael Jackson (“I’m crossing my fingers to meet him again,” he says), partied with Diddy, befriended Prince Azim of Brunei and carried Paris Hilton in his arms on the fashion runway. But he yearns for an Oregon home life in his future, and to be a firefighter.

Modeling is a fickle business, and White realizes it.

Hot, hot, hot one day, so yesterday the next.

For now, though, White is living the life.

He recently left for Europe and two months of work in London, Paris, Milan and Germany. There will be a lot of meetings and castings with designers, who may or may not like his look in their clothes. Chances are he’ll get work, and he already has some runway shows booked, but he never knows.

White visited family and friends for about 36 hours in the Portland area before heading overseas.

The morning after he arrived in town, he jumped on his Suzuki GSXR “crotch rocket” and reached 60 mph in about five seconds — in his pajamas.

“Should have poured water over the top of me, right?” he joked, thinking hot photo shoot.

As he sat and told his rags-to-riches story, a fluffy dog jumped into his lap. It’s a Shih Tzu named Bam Bam, 13 weeks old. White brought him out to stay with family in Tigard while he works in Europe. Bam Bam flew with his owner in a camouflage bag with little breathing holes. How stereotypical, huh, model and a yipping dog?

“Everyone says it’s a girl dog — either girls or gay guys have the dog,” he says. “Whatever. I like the dog.”

White already has taught him how to sit, speak, give “five,” and roll over. Someday, he’ll teach him the “pow —you’re dead” move.

White scratches his own whiskered head over his good fortune. He did work for Nike Inc., Fred Meyer and Macy’s in Portland, and shortly after arriving in New York he got to know Steven Klein, one of the world’s top fashion photographers.

Supposedly with Brad Pitt unavailable, Klein and the editors of L’Uomo Vogue magazine — Italian Vogue — chose White to be their man for the swimmer-themed photo spread of June 2006.

After five 20-hour days, it turned out to consume 45 pages and vaulted White to the top of the industry.

“And I got next to nothing for it,” he says. “But people approach me and say it’s the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen.”

One shot has White laying “dead” next to Marilyn Manson — mad rocker kills the pretty boy.

Living the big-city life

In modeling, editorial pictorials serve as résumés, and scores of photo shoots followed for White. They help create image and demand, and, thus, his day rate goes up. It’s largely a taboo subject, but White says he started at about $1,000 per day in New York, and suggests that his rate “quadrupled” and kept rising.

It’s still nowhere near what women make in modeling — up to $40,000 per day — or what photographers earn. But it’s good money, and it feeds White’s lifestyle in New York City.

“I’ve got to start investing better,” says White, who also owns an Audi TT sports car and once owned a home on Long Island before it burned down. “My dream is to make enough money to take care of my family, and then settle down with a wife and kids.

“I’m here to make it. I’m trying to stay away from partying.”

When he got to New York, White partied hard —three or four days a week, till the sun came up. But he learned quickly that the nightlife conflicted with his need to stay in shape — which, as his photos attest, he does quite well.

With a hangover, he would want to eat. Now he works out — running, boxing, weights, basketball, core exercises and simply walking places in the Big Apple. He does strategic partying, and, yes, he unabashedly says nightclubs let him in ahead of 300 other people standing in line.

White runs with the pretty people and the in crowd, but he remains Oregon personable.

“He’s the same guy. Modeling and all that hasn’t changed him — except his style and the way he dresses,” says Graham Doyle, with whom White lived in high school.

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