Ex-NFL Pro Bowl players try out curling with 2022 Olympic goal
Defensive lineman Jared Allen retired from the NFL in 2015 and wasn’t ready to give up on the competition he’d come to enjoy as a fivetime All-Pro.
His solution: The Olympics.
The problem: He didn’t compete in any Olympic sports.
Less than a year later, Allen and three other former NFL stars — none with any prior experience — are attempting to qualify for the U.S. national curling championships against players who have been throwing stones for most of their lives.
It would be the first step toward competing in the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
“Every team in the NFL — whether you’re hot garbage or the defending Super Bowl champions — every coach come August says the same thing: ‘We’re trying to win the Super Bowl,’” Allen said. “We come from that mentality, where we set lofty goals.
“Our short term goals are continually to get better: Fundamentals, strategy, sweeping. We know if we master these little things, it will take us a long way.”
A 12-year NFL veteran who spent most of his career with the Chiefs and Vikings, Allen was lamenting the end of his playing days when a friend dared him to try an Olympic sport. Allen toyed with the idea of badminton but rejected it as too taxing.
“We thought about curling. It was chill, and the winners have to buy the losers beer,” he said. “We thought it was a win-win.”
He rounded up former Rams quarterback Marc Bulger and Titans linebacker Keith Bulluck and tackle Michael Roos to form a team; all were Pro Bowl selections during their NFL career, and living near Nashville, Tennessee.
Adopting the name AllPro Curling Team, they started from scratch in March and kept their plans under wraps until they felt like they had made enough progress.
“We wanted the reaction when we got on the ice to be ‘Oh, how long have you guys been doing this?” Allen said in a telephone interview after practicing on a converted hockey rink in Nashville. “We were serious. We didn’t want it to seem like it was just some media hype, or just trying to stay relevant.”
The first test was in November, when Allen and Bulger — with two “regular” curlers — competed in the Curl Mesabi Classic in Northern Minnesota. but have a need to compete Their in their blood. Can’t disrespect first opponent: that!” The All four football players gold medal-winning agreed the reception they’ve received from lifetime team from Pyeongchang curlers is decidedly led by four-time different from a curler trying Olympian John Shuster. to break into the hypercompetitive
They lost 11-3, giving up NFL. five points in the sixth end. “Oh, he’d get smashed,”
“Honestly, they were a Allen said. “We’d go out of little better than I had expected,” our way to test his mettle, said Matt Hamilton, for sure.” the second on that Instead, they found the team. “All in all, Jared was tight-knit but friendly community technically pretty sound. of curlers was eager But at the end of the day, to accept them. In their I’ve seen thousands of curling match against the Olympians, shots and situations there was trash-talking and that is ultimately going
— or banter, depending on to win us more games.”
whom you ask — and Hamilton Although curling matches are often conceded when even gave them some they are out of reach, the of his old curling gear. Olympians kept playing “I looked at their broom through the eighth (of 10) heads and I was disgusted. ends, to help the football I was wondering why these players gain the experience former pro football players they’ll need if they are couldn’t afford new broom going to be more competitive. heads,” he said. “So I went (If it’s any consolation into my curling bag and for Allen’s crew, Shuster’s gave them some gently used rink also scored a fiveender ones before the game. That against Sweden in really surprised Jared, the gold-medal match.) claiming nothing like that
“We had one bad end, and would ever fly in football.” we just kept playing with Like many of those who them. We just wanted to only experience curling be a sponge,” Bulger said. every four years on TV, “The key was they knew we the football players saw the were taking it seriously. It sweeping and the shouting wasn’t just us saying ‘We’re and underestimated how going to take over curling,’ hard it is. “We played football, kind of as a gimmick. but it’s a lot of muscles
“We hope to play them we didn’t use,” Bulger said. again,” he said, “when Sliding on the ice was we’re better.” also an adjustment, but the
The All-Pros are back at biggest challenge has been it at the USA Men’s Challenge the strategy. Round this weekend When he first started in Blaine, Minnesota, watching, Bulger said, he where they are competing would see curlers setting for one of four remaining up protective stones called spots in next month’s national guards and thought they championships. (Top were missing their shots. teams like Shuster’s have “We just assumed that already qualified.) you throw to the button
They got off to a rough every time, and we learned start in their first match, that is not the game,” he falling 10-1 to Steve said. “It’s like a novice Birklid’s Seattle-based rink chess player going against” on Thursday night. But, by a grandmaster. hopping into the sport early But their NFL experience in the Olympic cycle, they did help in other ways, have almost three more
priming them with not just years before the team for
physical fitness but also the 2022 Games is chosen.
Hamilton confessed he good practice habits, making was put off at first about decisions on the fly and newcomers thinking they improving through film could reach the Olympics study and coaching. in a sport he’d worked a “Like any other sport, lifetime to master. But he you have to learn, try to also realized the publicity figure out how to get better,” will be good for curling, Bulluck said. “Playing which has struggled to football at a very high level, break out of its niche as an being one of the best at the every-four-years curiosity. position once upon a time,
“If I really think I’m that to get to that level in anything good, I should be like ‘Bring you do you have to be it on!’” Hamilton said in able to take coaching.” an email to The Associated And, of course, they’re Press from a competition competitive. in Japan. “How much “The message is: We they respected the game, want to bring attention though, is what made me to it. We want to have fun realize they aren’t making with it,” Allen said. “But a mockery. We just have we’re dead serious about some extremely athletic individuals what we’re trying to accomplish.” who respect sport