Nebraska Football Player Wins Olympic Gold in Bobsledding

Curt Tomasevicz grew up hundreds of miles from the nearest mountain in Shelby, Nebraska, population 700. Today, he's at the Winter Olympics in Italy as director of sport performance for Team USA Bobsledding, wearing his gold medal credentials like a badge of pure determination.

The 45-year-old's football stats at Nebraska weren't exactly NFL-worthy: one carry for two yards, five tackles total. But those years building power and speed on special teams turned out to be perfect training for something bigger.

Just one year after leaving Nebraska football, Tomasevicz made the national bobsledding team. He went on to win gold in 2010, breaking a 62-year drought for American bobsledding, plus a second Olympic medal and nine world championship medals. Last year, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame came calling.

The secret? Raw explosive power that translates perfectly from gridiron to ice. Tomasevicz set Nebraska's record for fullbacks with a 39.5-inch vertical jump, the exact kind of metric that predicts bobsledding success.

"I was able to apply my athleticism better to being a bobsled athlete than I guess I was as a football athlete," Tomasevicz said with a laugh. Size matters too: at 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds, he fit the bobsled mold perfectly.

Now Tomasevicz scouts college football rosters looking for that same combination of power and speed. Herschel Walker, the 1982 Heisman winner who competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics, represents the ideal profile he hunts for.

Why This Inspires

Tomasevicz's journey proves that peak performance isn't always where you first look for it. When he's home in Lincoln, he works as a performance research analyst for Nebraska athletics and teaches engineering, constantly searching for the next athlete who doesn't quite fit the NFL mold but might fly down an Olympic ice track.

Boyd Epley, Nebraska's former director of athletic performance, saw something special even when NFL scouts didn't. "Curt had natural power, explosive power that not everyone has," Epley said.

The hardest part of Tomasevicz's current job isn't finding talent. It's delivering the news to athletes who don't make the Olympic team. Last month in Germany, he made those difficult calls, then shared a long flight home to Lincoln with some of the heartbroken athletes.

But when he gets to share good news, watching faces light up makes every moment worth it. And unlike football, there's no offseason: recruiting season starts the moment the Olympics end on February 22.

His message to aspiring athletes is simple: if you've got explosive power and didn't quite make it in your first sport, your Olympic dream might be waiting on ice.