Nebraska small-town hero delivers gold-medal presentation in McCook

When future generations of small-town Nebraska youngsters grow up dreaming of athletic glory in their respective futures, Curt Tomasevicz will likely be a shining example that anything is possible.

Tomasevicz reached his ultimate goal last month when he was part of the gold medal-winning United States four-man bobsled team. The former University of Nebraska football player shared his Olympic experiences with St. Patrick Catholic School students and faculty in McCook Wednesday afternoon.

Tomasevicz spoke to the St. Patrick School gathering about his path from a tryout for his beloved University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team to starting on the kickoff and punt teams for the Huskers his last two years in Lincoln. He talked about getting interested in the sport of bobsledding, starting out not necessarily with dreams of Olympics gold, but rather for a device to keep in shape. He followed a path to become part of the No. 1 U.S. bobsled team, traveling all over Europe and North America for competitions leading up to last month's 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

The Shelby native was the brakeman on the gold-medal U.S. four-man bobsled team. He teammed with driver Steven Holcomb and pushers Steve Mesler and Justin Olsen to win Olympic gold in the two-day competition at Vancouver Feb. 26-27.

Small-town hero

The headline describing Tomasevicz's life might simply read: Local boy does good. Tomasevicz grew up in Shelby, Neb., a small farming community with a population around 500 people. Shelby is located about four hours east of McCook, and about an hour northwest of Lincoln.

Like most boys growing up in Nebraska, Curt dreamed of someday playing football for the Big Red.

"My grandpa had season tickets for Nebraska football, he'd take me at least once a year since I was seven or eight years old," Curt said.

As a youngster in Shelby, he also dreamed of competing in the Olympics. Curt said he started watching the Olympics on TV when he was seven years old, during the 1988 Winter Olympics, which was also held in Canada at Calgary.

But how many Husker boys actually achieve those dreams? A very, very small percentage.

"First of all, I wanted to be a Nebraska football player," Curt said in an interview Wednesday at St. Patrick School. "I loved athletics, all sports, but I wanted to be in the Olympics too. I really didn't think I was going to be in the bobsled, but at the same time, I just took advantage of the opportunity given to me."

UNL academic scholarship

After Tomasevicz graduated from Shelby High School in 1999, he decided to enroll at the University of Nebraska to study electrical engineering. He had an academic scholarship at UNL, and football was initially not part of his college plans. Curt received an opportunity to try out for the Huskers following the 1999 season. He said there were 120 players involved in the tryout, and only four players were invited to participate in spring football the following March.

"I was one of those four," he said.

When the 1999 NU spring football workouts concluded, Tomasevicz was one of two players from the quartet that survived the previous fall's tryout to actually become a part of the Husker football program for the 2000 season.

Curt got to suit up for games in 2000, eventually moving from running back to linebacker. He never started on defense, but he worked his way to starting spots on the NU kickoff and punt teams his final two seasons.

Stumbled into bobsledding

When his Husker football career ended in 2003, Tomasevicz stumbled into bobsledding.

"I was kind of looking for a way to stay in shape," he said. "A girl that ran track (Amanda Morley) was recruited for the U.S. women's bobsled team.'

Morley was looking for a training partner for the summer, and Tomasevicz got recruited.

"I was going to graduate school, I said 'Sure, I'll train with you.' At the end of the summer, she talked me into trying out for the men's team myself," Curt said.

"I was pretty fortunate because I really didn't take any time off between football into bobsledding, so I was still in pretty decent shape. It's just squats and cleans (weightlifting) and sprints. The stronger and faster you are, that usually correlates into a good bobsledder. Not directly, but that certainly helps."

Quick rise to USA I team

Tomasevicz joined the U.S. bobsled team in September 2004. He quickly worked his way onto the USA II team for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torion, Italy, where his team (with Holcomb driving) finished sixth. More importantly, USA II finished ahead of the top U.S. squad, and Tomasevicz and Holcomb were elevated to the USA I team in 2007.

"It was a pretty quick transition and just something I caught on to rather fast," he said.

In the four-man bobsled, the driver rides in front on the sled, and he does the steering with a system of ropes and pulleys. The pushers and brakeman do their job at the start, helping the driver get the machine up to full speed -- the faster the better. The four team members then hop aboard and ride down the slick, ice-covered track.

"It's a simple sport -- it's ice and gravity and a sled, there's no motor," he said. "You do it at an incredibly extreme rate, I guess. Just like you're sledding on your backyard -- maybe not here in Nebraska, but in the mountains. It's pretty simple, really."

Tomasevicz said the Vancouver track is the fastest in the world, and competitors in the Olympics reached speeds around 95 miles per hour.

At the end of the run, the brakeman uses a set of handles connected to hooks on the bottom of the sled to bring the machine to a halt.

In the Olympics, each team gets four runs down the course over the two days of competition. The four times are totaled for a team time, and the fastest team wins the gold medal.

The 2010 bobsled course was located at Whistler, Canada, about two hours from Vancouver. Tomasevicz and his teammates had a total time of 3 minutes, 24.46 seconds on their four Olympic runs. Germany finished second to win the silver medal with a time of 3:24.84 -- less than four-tenths of a second behind the Americans. Canada won the bronze medal in third place at 3:24.85 -- just one-hundredth of a second behind the Germans.

The last time a U.S. team had won an Olympic bobsled gold medal was in 1948 at St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Tough 13th curve ahead

Tomasevicz and his team had a comfortable, half-second lead entering the final run at Whistler Feb. 29. Curt said all the U.S. team needed to win the gold medal was a clean final run without a crash. It wasn't until the U.S. team negotiated the tricky 50-50 turn -- the 13th of 16 curves on the course -- that they knew the gold medal was theirs.

"Once we got through curve 13 -- which was that dangerous curve that a lot of teams had trouble with -- once we got through there, there was three more curves left," Curt said. "We knew we had it then, it was just a matter of lasting those last 15 seconds before we crossed the finish line. Once we crossed the finish line it's been non-stop excitement since then. These last two weeks have just been a blur."

After the Olympics, Tomasevicz returned to his native Shelby for a hero's welcome. Curt has had several other speaking engagements around the state. He was traveling with his belongings in a U-Haul truck Wednesday as he was heading to Colorado Springs to resume his training regimen.

Old family friend

Father Copenhaver of the St. Patrick Catholic Church in McCook was directly responsible for getting the Olympic standout to town. Father Copenhaver spends several days a week at the McCook church, and he was Tomasevicz's pastor in Shelby during Curt's younger years.

"He was our pastor as I grew up in Shelby fifth grade through high school," Curt said. "I'm pretty good friends with him. He asked if I would come out and speak with the kids, and I said sure."

Living proof

Tomasevicz told the St. Patrick students at Wednesday' presentation that he was a living example that anyone from a small Nebraska town can achieve big goals.

"It's basically setting goals, and that's how you accomplish things and how you set your path (in life)," he said. "It gives you something to shoot for so you're not wandering and lost. Of course, there's a lot of small steps in between that you have to take of, but that's the main idea."

Tomasevicz asked the young male students in the crowd Wednesday how many of them dreamed of playing football for Nebraska, and nearly every hand went up. He asked the young ladies in the audience how many of them dreamed of playing volleyball, or perhaps basketball, for the Husker women's teams sometime in the future, and he received the same enthusiastic response.

Future Olympians?

A highlight of Tomasevicz's presentation was the selection of the 2036 U.S. Olympic bobsled team. Curt asked for volunteers and he brought Hermoine Lofton, Trey Barnhart, Wade Burkert and Luke Roberts out of the stands to help demonstrate some of the finer points of his sport. He had the four youngsters demonstrate the rhythmic start of the bobsled team, and how the team curls up inside the sled on the speeds ride down the course. The future bobsledders had to use a pretend machine for their demonstration.

Heavy hardware

The crowd cheered when Tomasevicz pulled his heavy gold medal out of his pocket and draped it around his neck. Most of the crowd got a close look at the Olympic hardware when Curt signed autographs at the end of his presentation.

Tomasevicz said his current job situation entails full-time bobsled training and part-time speaking. He was thankful for the Shelby community that raised $25,000 to help him get started in the sport several years ago. He also has received donations and sponsorships from several businesses and individuals.

He hasn't made a decision yet, but the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, may be in Tomasevicz's future plans.

"Right now I'm leaning toward it, I haven't decided for sure. I'm leaning toward that," he said.

A small-town Nebraska boy, on the fast track to superstar status in the Cornhusker State.