OSU FOOTBALL Former walk-on Gilsleider earns bobsled national title
Two separate sport tryouts have come to define much of Nathan Gilsleider’s life.
The first as a walk-on for the Oklahoma State football program.
The second for the USA bobsled national team.
“How do you come from football to bobsledding?” OSU football coach Mike Gundy asked before spring practice Wednesday. “That’s pretty cool.”
But each experience is more connected than Gundy might expect, and now, Gilsleider is a national champion. He completed the 2016-17 bobsled season with a first-place finish last week as part of a twoman team in Lake Placid, N.Y. Should Gilsleider reach similar heights next season, he will be in line to compete for his country at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, becoming the first OSU graduate to ever reach the winter games.
“I thought my competing days were over and then this door opened up,” Gilsleider said. “It would be a dream-cometrue, obviously, to call yourself an Olympian.”
Gilsleider was born and raised in Claremore where he blossomed into an All-State high school selection in soccer, basketball and baseball; earning college scholarship opportunities in all three. But after tearing his labrum as a pitcher at Eastern Oklahoma State College, Gilsleider shifted his focus to OSU football.
He had never played competitively, but Gilsleider’s athleticism shined during walk-on tryouts in 2008, and he made the team at receiver. Through the Cowboys’ rise to national prominence behind the likes of Zac Robinson, Dez Bryant, Brandon Pettigrew and Kendall Hunter, Gilsleider played a key role as member of the scout team.
“Those are guys I still look up to,” Gilsleider said. “That’s probably one of the things I enjoy most, looking back and knowing those guys from the standpoint of, ‘This is what it takes to do something great.’ If not at Oklahoma State, whatever you want to do in life.”
Gilsleider suffered a knee injury in 2009 that ended his OSU playing career before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in health promotion and education in 2010. He later landed an internship at the Michael Johnson Performance Center, an athlete training facility in McKinney, Texas, where Gilsleider crossed paths with Johnny Quinn — a former North Texas receiver turned Olympic bobsledder who convinced Gilsleider to hit the ice.
But once again, Gilsleider would need to prove himself in a tryout for a sport in which he never competed in a combine-style audition. With a powerful 6-foot-3, 220pound frame, Gilsleider’s athletic versatility proved fruitful. He made the national team as a rookie in 2015.
So, what is the sport like?
“I heard somebody talk about it, and I feel like it’s a pretty good analogy,” Gilsleider said. “It feels like you’re put in a trash can and kicked down a hill.”
Gilsleider is what’s known as a brakeman. Starting on either side of the bobsled with up to three others, he uses power and speed for the push start, and like a synchronized dance, loads into the sled with precise movements into a middle slot. “I don’t see a thing the rest of the way down the track,” he said.
His job is far from over, though, as Gilsleider uses course study and muscle memory to shift his weight with every turn. At top speed, the sled can reach up to 94 miles per hour. It is Gilsleider’s task to eliminate drag in a sport that is equal parts exhilarating, violent, fun and scary. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever done,” he said.
Gilsleider is now enjoying some needed time off back in Claremore after the completion of a grueling seven-month season traveling the globe with USA bobsled. When the OSU football team starts conference play in October, Gilsleider will begin a long series of testing and competition to defend his national championship. Large nations are guaranteed two bobsled team bids for the Olympic Games, and possibly a third based on a points system.
Regardless of what happens in 2018, one thing will remain constant: Gilsleider’s desire to return home.
“Hopefully I can work my way back to Stillwater, who knows, something in the athletic department or something like that,” Gilsleider said, “to be a part of the Cowboy family again.”