To John Shuster, there’s only one thing better than winning the only Olympic medal in U.S. curling history. And he’s hoping to accomplish that this week at the Broomfield Event Center.
Shuster was a member of the U.S. team that beat Great Britain on the game’s last shot to win the bronze medal three years ago in Turin. Then a funny thing happened on the way to Vancouver.
Shuster left.
He wanted to finish school. He wanted to lead his own team in the Olympics. So there he stood Monday afternoon, fresh off his Team Shuster’s 5-4 win over Team Johnson for a 2-2 record in the round-robin, week-long Olympic Trials. He graduated from Minnesota-Duluth magna cum laude. He got engaged.
Pete Fenson, who “skipped” the bronze medal team, is an alternate here after his team failed to qualify for these trials.
“I had 34 credits left to finish college,” said Shuster, 26. “I’d been doing the 12 credits and missing class like unbelievable amounts. We talked about 2010, but that was four years away and that’s kind of a long ways to talk about.”
So he went back to school full time and in 2007 hooked up with Jason Smith, his childhood friend from Chisholm, Minn., and Jeff Isaacson, another buddy from the Iron Range near the Canadian border. Then they went off and won the 2007 World University Games at the same Turin venue where the Olympics were held.
Last summer they lured John Benton, 39, a veteran mulling retirement. It was no secret that Shuster had to leave to lead.
“I’d heard stories of when he was very young and very confident,” Benton said. “He’ll say, ‘We’ll just make this shot, no matter how difficult.’ ”
Keep in mind, Shuster didn’t get full of himself. That goes against the curling code. After the Olympics, he went right back to his job as bartender at the Duluth Curling Club. You would think in the curling capital of the U.S., customers would want to buy Shuster drinks instead of buy from him.
But no, and he doesn’t have the bronze medal hanging from the Budweiser spigot. His parents have it locked up.
“It’s great to share my Olympic experience with a lot of people, whether it’s friends, family, other curlers, kids,” he said. “Other than that, day to day, it hasn’t changed anything. I still go home to my parents once a month.
“My friends don’t look at me differently, but everybody goes, ‘Do you have it on you?’ Then after talking to me for a minute, they realize I’m just another guy.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
