Shaun White--snowboarder extraordinaire, Olympic gold medalist, global superstar--is as cool and hip as they come. Some would say he's the face of the Winter Games. I would say he's the poster boy for integrity. Here's why.

I have a friend who uses what he calls the "Three-Way Integrity Test" as a way to measure whether or not he is doing something with integrity. When presented with an opportunity or an invitation to join in some kind of activity, he asks himself three questions:

1. Is it legal?

2. Is it fair to all parties involved?

3. Would I be okay if a photo of my activity showed up in the newspaper or on the Internet the next morning?

After winning his gold medal in spectacular fashion in the half-pipe, Shaun White, who is already incredibly rich and famous, appeared at a press conference with Scott Lago, another American snowboarder who took the bronze in the same event. According to Los Angeles Times sportswriter Bill Plaschke, who was at the press conference, Shaun was asked what he was going to do next, whereupon he turned to Lago and said, "What do you want to do next, man?"

"Party!" Lago responded.

Shaun looked at the group of media people and said, "That's his quote." He then turned to Lago and said, "It's going to be your face in the paper, dude, and you don't even know it."

"Sure enough," wrote Plaschke, "a night later Lago was photographed in a public place with a women kissing his medal in an inappropriate fashion, and he immediately left town."

Clearly, Scott Lago failed the Integrity test, and what he did showed up in the paper and on the Internet the next morning, just as Shaun White had predicted.

For his part, Shaun White passed the integrity test, not because he was lucky enough not to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, but because he thought it through and made a decision ahead of time to act with integrity.

Dude, that's an Olympic story worth celebrating.