Olympic Champion Says His Greatest Hero Was a 12-Year-Old Boy with a Brain Tumor
Olympian Curt Tomasevicz on Courage, Faith, and True Success on Heroic Stories
An Olympic gold medal often represents the peak of a lifetime’s effort—years of relentless training, sacrifice, and competition distilled into a few seconds of victory.
For Curt Tomasevicz, a gold-medal bobsledder for the United States, that moment came at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Yet when asked about heroism, Tomasevicz does not point to the podium, the medal, or the roaring crowd.
Instead, he tells the story of a 12-year-old boy named Jordan.
And nearly two decades later, Tomasevicz still calls that boy his greatest hero.
A Request for Two Football Tickets
The moment that shaped Tomasevicz’s understanding of courage happened long before Olympic glory.
At the time, he was an undergraduate football player at the University of Nebraska, a walk-on athlete working hard to earn his place on the team.
One evening before a home game, a friend reached out with an unusual request: two tickets for a young fan.
The tickets were for Jordan, a 12-year-old boy battling a brain tumor.
“It turns out these tickets were for a 12-year-old boy and his mother,” Tomasevicz recalled. “He had good days and bad days. That Friday happened to be a good day, so they were hoping Saturday would be another good opportunity for him to get to a game.”
Tomasevicz called Nebraska head coach Frank Solich, who arranged the tickets. After the game, the athlete had a chance to meet the boy and his family.
What he encountered left a lasting impression.
Courage Beyond Comprehension
Jordan was already facing the reality that his illness would likely take his life.
“He knew he was going to die,” Tomasevicz said quietly. “He did pass away about a year later.”
Yet what struck Tomasevicz most was the boy’s attitude.
Jordan was losing his vision. His balance was deteriorating. Medical treatments filled his days. But despite the mounting difficulties, he rarely complained.
Instead, he worried about others.
“He was more concerned about his mom’s schedule,” Tomasevicz said, “and how many days his sister was going to have to miss school because of what he was going through.”
Jordan also carried a deep faith that steadied him during the illness.
“The combination of his selflessness and his faith,” Tomasevicz said, “that’s what made him a hero.”
Nearly 20 years later, the memory remains vivid.
“I still look at him as probably my biggest hero.”
A Lesson for a Young College Athlete
The meeting came at a formative time in Tomasevicz’s life.
As a college student, he was navigating the uncertain space between adolescence and adulthood—confident in some ways, uncertain in others.
“I was an undergrad, 18 or 19 years old, trying to find my way in life,” he said. “And at the same time thinking I had a lot of stuff figured out—which I didn’t.”
Jordan’s quiet courage disrupted that assumption.
“This 12-year-old kid comes into my life and just smacks me in the face with what truth is,” Tomasevicz said.
The boy’s example forced him to rethink what strength and manhood really meant.
“How to be a man of faith,” he said. “How to handle incredibly hard situations.”
The encounter also pushed Tomasevicz to reconsider his own Catholic faith.
He had grown up attending Mass with his family each weekend. But during college, he began asking deeper questions about what that faith meant beyond routine.
Jordan’s example helped bring those questions into sharper focus.
“He showed me what it’s like to really have faith in the afterlife,” Tomasevicz said. “And to live that faith in practice.”
The Hardest Transition for Athletes
Years later, Tomasevicz would reach the highest level of sport.
He joined the U.S. bobsled team and eventually competed in the Winter Olympics, winning gold in Vancouver in 2010.
But like many elite athletes, he faced a difficult moment when his competitive career began to wind down.
Athletes often organize their lives around a single moment—a race, a game, or an Olympic cycle that arrives once every four years.
“When that date comes and goes,” Tomasevicz said, “life goes on.”
For many competitors, the transition can be disorienting.
“You’re looking around like, ‘What happens next?’” he said. “Sometimes your body tells you that you have to stop.”
By 2014, Tomasevicz’s knees and back were sending that message clearly.
“I wasn’t sure where I fit,” he said.
A priest friend offered guidance during that uncertain period, encouraging him to focus on the essentials first: faith and family.
“That’s where you start when making big decisions,” Tomasevicz said.
Eventually, new opportunities emerged. Today he serves as an assistant professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Nebraska, focusing on biomechanics and human movement. He also works as director of sport performance for USA Bobsled and Skeleton.
A Bronze Medal That Felt Bigger Than Gold
Even with Olympic success behind him, Tomasevicz says the most intense moment of his athletic career came four years later.
At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, his team entered the final run locked in a tight battle for bronze.
Six sleds were separated by only fractions of a second. The competition unfolded on Russian soil, before a roaring home crowd.
“There weren’t many Americans in the stands cheering for us,” he recalled. “Mostly thousands of Russians going crazy for their team.”
In that moment, Tomasevicz said, the four members of the U.S. sled shared a realization.
“All the support that got us here—our hometowns, coaches, families—that had already happened,” he said. “But right here, right now, it was up to the four of us.”
They delivered.
The team secured the bronze medal by a razor-thin margin. Years later, the result was upgraded to silver after a doping investigation disqualified the Russian team that originally won.
Yet for Tomasevicz, the meaning of that race remains unchanged.
“That intense competition for the bronze medal was probably more special than running away with the gold,” he said.
The difference came down to perspective: the pressure, the closeness of the race, and the knowledge that every tiny detail mattered.
Lessons from Small-Town Nebraska
If Tomasevicz has one source for the grit that fueled his career, he traces it back to his upbringing.
He grew up in Shelby, Nebraska, a town of about 690 people.
The region has no bobsled tracks. The land is flat farmland. Even sledding down hills rarely lasts more than a few seconds.
Yet the community instilled values that shaped his path.
When he began pursuing bobsledding—a sport few locals understood—the town rallied behind him.
“They had fundraisers for me,” Tomasevicz said. “They did everything they could to support my crazy dream.”
That support became motivation.
At first, he felt pressure not to disappoint the people cheering him on. Over time, he realized their pride came from something deeper.
“They were proud because I worked hard,” he said. “Because I was trying to do the right thing.”
Those lessons remain central to the message he shares when speaking to audiences across the country.
Honor Beyond the Game
When reflecting on the influences that shaped him, Tomasevicz often points to coaches and teachers.
One memory stands out.
Near graduation, his high-school English teacher assigned a major project even though it would barely affect students’ final grades.
Many seniors questioned the point.
Tomasevicz asked the same question.
Her answer stayed with him.
“That’s exactly why you need to do it,” she told the class.
The assignment, she explained, was meant to reveal something more important than grades: who would still do the right thing when the consequences were small.
“Are you still going to put forth the effort?” Tomasevicz said, recalling her lesson. “If nobody’s watching, are you still going to do the right thing?”
For him, that idea became a guiding principle.
Honor and integrity mattered more than the scoreboard.
A Hero’s Influence
Today, Tomasevicz speaks to audiences ranging from schoolchildren to corporate groups.
His message often returns to the same theme: life can feel like a bobsled run—fast, unpredictable, and on the edge of control.
The key, he says, lies in focusing on the details that can be controlled.
“If you take care of everything that you can,” he said, “life usually has a way of working out.”
But the deepest lesson in his story still traces back to a boy named Jordan.
A boy who faced death with calm faith and concern for others.
A boy whose courage changed a young athlete’s understanding of heroism.
Nearly twenty years later, the Olympic champion still measures greatness by that standard.
And the gold medal—though unforgettable—remains secondary.