MOREHEAD, Ky.--To be involved in the Olympics is a dream for many, but to participate in more than one is almost beyond belief. From his hotel room en route to the 2010 Winter Olympics, Morehead State University alumnus Brian Shimer talked about the excitement and wonder of the upcoming event. He couldn’t be more enthusiastic about making a return trip.
As an athlete, Shimer competed in five Olympics and received a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002. As a coach, he is a World Cup and a World Championship medalist.
Shimer, men’s head coach of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation since 2006, is amazed that he is doing what he loves to do, is having so much fun, and it’s his job. He is ready for the Olympics which get under way Feb. 12 in Vancouver.
In the four-man bobsled heat, the USA1 sled will be the first down the hill at the Olympics, thanks to the team’s World Cup win earlier this year. Shimer believes his team is in shape and ready to participate. Steve Holcomb (who is ranked among the best four-man bobsled drivers in the world) will be at the helm, and training has gone as planned.
Last year ended on a record high for the coach of the four-man bobsled team that won the World Championship in Lake Placid. He hopes to duplicate that win and take home the gold in Vancouver.
“It was a great way to end the season. Winning the World Championship ended
a 50-year drought for the U.S. in bobsledding,” he said.
The American public gets reintroduced to bobsledding every four years during the Olympics, Shimer explained, when the athletes are continually competing. During the off years, they vie for the World Championship which is one race, four heats, during a weekend.
The World Cup is a series of races, completed throughout the year, against competitors from around the world in different countries. The one with the most accumulated points is the No. 1 seed at the Olympics.
After being involved in bobsledding for 25 years, Shimer said teaching great athletes to be great bobsledders is the easy part of the training process. As a coach, he is always looking for the fastest way down a track. “The start is important but medals are won at the bottom.”
However, the job does come with some challenges.
“One degree I didn’t get there at MSU was a psychology degree,” he jokes. “That would be a great tool when dealing with both male and female athletes. Everyone is different. Learning how to motivate, what it takes to make them be successful and how they can be the best they can be,” are among his major concerns.
With a nonstop travel schedule, Shimer may be overseas, in Canada, Europe, or somewhere in the U.S., at any given time. He believes the life is harder on his family, wife Annamarie, daughter Briana, 4, and son Bodie, 2.
“I have done this a lot,” he said. “But it gets harder when they say they ‘miss daddy’.”
A Florida native, Shimer was a running back and wide receiver on the football team. After completing his degree in 1985, he was recruited by the U.S. Bobsled Federation because of his athleticism and thus began his long association with the sport.
“I enjoy what I do,” Shimer said. “I have been blessed. It has been my life for so long.”
He was inducted into the MSU Alumni Hall of Fame in 2002.
Shimer apologized for not making it back to the MSU campus as often as he would have liked. He keeps in touch with a number of folks and corresponds with his football team by e-mail and Facebook.
“My heart is there in Morehead and I hope to go to Vancouver and make everybody proud!
