By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Kelly Curtis loves to compete.
The long-time Princeton resident was a standout in track and field at Springfield College, where she specialized in the heptathlon. After graduating, she got into coaching at the college level as an assistant track coach at St. Lawrence University.
It was during her time at St. Lawrence that Curtis realized she still had the itch to compete and she found that competing in Olympic sliding events, first with the bobsled and currently with skeleton.
“I got into sliding right after the 2014 (Olympic) games when I was still in grad school,” said Curtis, a 2007 Princeton High School graduate. “I did my first sliding school for skeleton and in the then fall of 2014 I started bobsled. I started skeleton midway through that year. I just finished my second full year for skeleton and I am getting ready for the Olympic trails in Calgary in October and then Lake Placid.”
Curtis is one of 19 female athletes invited to the trials for what will probably be three available spots. She will compete in two races in Calgary and then two more in Lake Placid as she takes her shot at her Olympic dream.
“It’s a lot of training and hard work but there is nothing like that minute or two you’re competing,” Curtis said. “I remember talking to Steve Holcomb, the great bobsledder who just passed away last month. People would ask him if he was going to get into coaching at some point and he said why would I do that? The two minutes I am on that track competing are the best time. I would not want to give that up. That’s how I feel. I love that time while I am on the track competing.”
It was her background in track and field that led her to give the sliding sports a shot.
“My strength and conditioning coach at Springfield (Dan Jaffe), when I was competing in track, he told me to go for bobsled because it was like a heptathlon without the endurance of the 800,” the 28-year-old Curtis said. “When I was coaching at St. Lawrence I was close enough to Lake Placid that I could go over and see how I would place in competitions.”
Curtis quickly took to the sport, first in bobsled and now in skeleton. She enjoys the individual aspect of skeleton, which involves moving head first on a tiny sled down a track of ice at speeds of over 80 miles per hour. When she tells her friends exactly what it is she does while competing, they are equal parts impressed and curious about the sport.
“My first year doing it when I was in bobsled I remember going back to Princeton the night before Thanksgiving and seeing my friends and they were super impressed,” Curtis recalls. “But they didn’t realize the dedication it takes. You are basically putting your career on hold and there are sacrifices you have to make.
“My first year I pretty naive about the whole system. But the coaches saw a lot of potential in me and the past two years I have just been grinding it out. It was around this time last year that I started with Dick’s Sporting Goods and their USA Contenders Program. I was in the Princeton store and would see a lot of people in there I knew and some of my friends’ parents.”
Curtis is in New York this summer working as a site director for an English immersion program for teenagers to earn some money for a new sled. She manages to fit her training in around her work, which has become a way of life for many Olympic hopefuls.
“My fiance (Jeff Milliron) is writing my training program for me,” Curtis said. “I met him at Princeton University and he is now at Tulane. When I started working with him I could see a great improvement in my start times. He went to the Olympic trials in discus and he has a different method of training.
“My off-season training is as a short sprinter and even more so as an Olympic weight lifter. At first I was focused on the sprinting. But because the skeleton start is so awkward I changed up what I was doing to make me more explosive at the start. I focus a lot on the Olympic weight lifting like snatches and cleans.”
She will spend the summer in New York as she looks to earn money to follow her dream. Curtis has led a self-described nomad existence over the past two years. He parents have moved to Miami and she spends time there as well as wherever her training takes her. She also spends some time trying to raise funds to help cover the expenses of her training.
“My first year I was really enthusiastic about that,” Curtis said. “By my second year I hated doing it because I was acting like a charity case. That second year I tried to be self sufficient. This past year I realized it does take a village to help get a person on the ice. So I will be doing some more fundraising.
“I have been moving around the past 18 months, so that part has proved difficult. It’s hard to find a home base and a home town. I don’t even have a mailing address right now.”
But for Curtis, all the sacrifice is worthwhile, especially if she achieves her ultimate dream.
“Depending on how well everybody does on the national team for World Cup season prior to the trials it could be two or three sliders per gender as far as open spots,” she said. “In 2014 there were only two spots. This year looks like it could be three spots. There will be maybe 19 of us that were invited, which is a huge honor in itself.”
