GSRelyea
02-01-2006, 11:00 AM
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/torino/freestyle/2006-01-31-jeremy-bloom-portrait_x.htm
Speed demon thrills on slopes and turf
By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY
Jeremy Bloom drove to the field in Boulder, Colo., straight from the Denver airport, fresh off a U.S. ski team summer training camp in South America, skis strapped to his car.
Jeremy Bloom decided to focus on skiing after NCAA rules cut short his college football career at Colorado.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
University of Colorado football coaches had heard he could run fast. This was his last opportunity to show them before entering his senior year of high school.
"He didn't have anything to work out in," says Shawn Watson, Colorado's offensive coordinator at the time, "except for some shorts and a T-shirt and some tennis shoes. But he took the shoes off, ran the 40 and the rest was history."
Bloom soon had a Division I college football scholarship offer and more tinder for the divided passion that still has him hurrying from slopes to turf, pursuing one sports dream while living another.
If Bloom, 23, were merely the world's best on a moguls run, which last season he was — winning six consecutive World Cup events and the overall World Cup title — the hype for him at the Olympics in Italy would be amplified enough.
But Bloom also has this crazy yet compelling plan to run at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis a week after the Olympic men's moguls competition Feb. 15.
This time he'll probably have the proper shoes. "I'll have a full week to put the cleats back on, start running and do it," he says.
He's doing it because he can, and that hasn't always been the case.
His football career at Colorado was cut short by NCAA rules that didn't allow Bloom to accept skiing endorsements while playing football. He fought the rules in court but didn't win. He left Colorado after making his mark for two seasons, primarily as a speedy, elusive kick returner.
"A lot of times in life, when there's something we have that's taken away prematurely, that we love, there's a certain anguish," says Bloom's father, Larry, a psychology professor at Colorado State. "You look at yourself and you say, 'I really wonder what could have been.' "
An early yen for football
Bloom grew up in Loveland, Colo., 50 miles north of Denver, treating the living room couch as an end zone, diving for tosses from his father and older sister, Molly, and older brother, Jordan. For a while, during elementary school, he carried a football almost everywhere he went.
"I asked him one time why he always had a football in his hand," says his mother, Char. "He said, 'When I'm holding a football, I feel powerful.' "
Although his father coached him through four years of midget football and obliged nearly every time Bloom begged for a game of catch in the backyard, the family sports focus was not solely on football. His mother has been a ski instructor for nearly 20 years. Although other kids spent Saturday mornings watching cartoons, the Bloom kids were the first on the chairlifts and the last off.
Until the youngest Bloom found a facilitator for his football jones.
His paternal grandfather, Jerry, gets credit in family lore for coaxing a 4-year-old Bloom down a ski run by throwing candy bars for him to retrieve at the bottom. He also was the person, a few years later, to cave in to his grandson's preference on NFL Sundays: The two would leave the mountain early to watch the Denver Broncos game at the family condominium.
"He would say, 'Pop, can we go home and watch football?' I knew that was important to him, and I would say, 'OK, boy, one more run, and we'll go.' And I had no trouble with him doing the run after that," Bloom's grandfather says.
A natural when it came to speed
Whether on a football field or a ski run, Bloom had no trouble standing out once he began competing. Speed was his trademark. He has run the 40-yard dash in 4.25 seconds, and he displayed a blazing brand of ski speed in coming from behind to win the U.S. Olympic trials in December.
"Watching him go through that middle part of the run," his mother says, "he was going so fast that my legs got a little weak just watching him."
His grandfather remembers one of his first ski races, a simple slalom in which Bloom was supposed to zigzag through one set of flags down the course while another skier followed a different set of flags.
"Jeremy just went straight," his grandfather says. "He got to the bottom of the hill, and I went over to him and said, 'What happened? You know you've been practicing this.' He said, 'I beat him, didn't I?' "
While in middle school, Bloom played quarterback for his midget football team and developed the ski-racing skills that would earn him a bronze medal in the 2000 junior world championships. He also gained an unflappable, quiet confidence.
"I feel like my potential really wasn't reached at Colorado because I never got that starting-receiver opportunity," says Bloom.
"I remember the first time, when he was a sophomore, that I put him in a varsity game," says Tony Davis, a former offensive coordinator at Loveland High School.
"Our head coach was a little apprehensive, saying, 'He's not ready.' I said, 'Are you kidding me? Do you think playing high school football in front of 600 people bothers him?' And it didn't."
The crowds, in fact, hold much of football's appeal for Bloom. "You have all these teammates and the pressures and the rivalry and the 80,000 people screaming and that emotion and that thrill that I can't find in skiing," Bloom says.
He thrilled many Colorado fans with his darting dashes, contorting his impossibly limber body to slip tackles and make cuts. Bloom flashed it all in his first punt return, running 75 yards for a touchdown against his father's employer, Colorado State.
His father had no quandary over whom to cheer.
"I had a split screen in my mind's eye," he says. "I saw what was unfolding in front of me, and I also watched the 7-year-old, 8-year-old, 9-year-old, 10-year-old boy in the backyard with me who incessantly would have me throw passes.
"I don't know that I'll ever experience anything quite that high again."
He might if his son wins Olympic gold in Torino or returns a kick for an NFL touchdown.
Bloom was ninth in the 2002 Olympics after delaying the start of his college football career a year to prepare. Entering the 2006 Games, Bloom has had two seasons away from football, which contributes to the doubts he must dispel between the Torino men's moguls final and the NFL draft.
Size could work against him in NFL
Foremost among the doubts is his size. The U.S. ski team lists him at 5-9, 170 pounds. Bloom says he used to add at least 10 pounds to play football. He aims to get to 185 for the NFL.
Gil Brandt, the former vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, doesn't think size will keep Bloom out of the NFL, predicting he'll be a likely late-round draft pick. But he adds it could limit Bloom's role.
"Sometimes when you're a kick returner it helps being smaller because you can make quicker cuts," Brandt says. "Where it comes into play is everybody would like taller receivers, and a lot of times your kick returner is your fourth receiver or third receiver."
Bloom won't be choosy, but he says he would like most of all to play receiver regularly, something that never happened at Colorado. His multitasking training schedule didn't allow enough time to refine things such as his route running.
"I feel like my potential really wasn't reached at Colorado because I never got that starting-receiver opportunity," he says. "But put me in an offense that utilizes a spread-receiver set — four receivers, three receivers — and I feel like I can stretch the field."
The Bloom highlight that plays most often in Colorado quarterback Joel Klatt's mind is an acrobatic, sideline-tickling, game-winning-drive reception against Colorado State on Aug. 30, 2003, Bloom's second season.
"I can remember watching the film thinking to myself, 'There's probably only one guy in the world that can make that play and get his foot inbounds,' " Klatt says. "That's Jeremy Bloom. He was twisting. He looked almost like he was skiing moguls."
Klatt spoke with Bloom the week he left his college football career behind to carve his sports fortunes full time among the moguls. "At the end of the conversation I can remember saying, 'Well, go win a gold medal now.' "
Football could still be there when Bloom comes back.
Speed demon thrills on slopes and turf
By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY
Jeremy Bloom drove to the field in Boulder, Colo., straight from the Denver airport, fresh off a U.S. ski team summer training camp in South America, skis strapped to his car.
Jeremy Bloom decided to focus on skiing after NCAA rules cut short his college football career at Colorado.
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
University of Colorado football coaches had heard he could run fast. This was his last opportunity to show them before entering his senior year of high school.
"He didn't have anything to work out in," says Shawn Watson, Colorado's offensive coordinator at the time, "except for some shorts and a T-shirt and some tennis shoes. But he took the shoes off, ran the 40 and the rest was history."
Bloom soon had a Division I college football scholarship offer and more tinder for the divided passion that still has him hurrying from slopes to turf, pursuing one sports dream while living another.
If Bloom, 23, were merely the world's best on a moguls run, which last season he was — winning six consecutive World Cup events and the overall World Cup title — the hype for him at the Olympics in Italy would be amplified enough.
But Bloom also has this crazy yet compelling plan to run at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis a week after the Olympic men's moguls competition Feb. 15.
This time he'll probably have the proper shoes. "I'll have a full week to put the cleats back on, start running and do it," he says.
He's doing it because he can, and that hasn't always been the case.
His football career at Colorado was cut short by NCAA rules that didn't allow Bloom to accept skiing endorsements while playing football. He fought the rules in court but didn't win. He left Colorado after making his mark for two seasons, primarily as a speedy, elusive kick returner.
"A lot of times in life, when there's something we have that's taken away prematurely, that we love, there's a certain anguish," says Bloom's father, Larry, a psychology professor at Colorado State. "You look at yourself and you say, 'I really wonder what could have been.' "
An early yen for football
Bloom grew up in Loveland, Colo., 50 miles north of Denver, treating the living room couch as an end zone, diving for tosses from his father and older sister, Molly, and older brother, Jordan. For a while, during elementary school, he carried a football almost everywhere he went.
"I asked him one time why he always had a football in his hand," says his mother, Char. "He said, 'When I'm holding a football, I feel powerful.' "
Although his father coached him through four years of midget football and obliged nearly every time Bloom begged for a game of catch in the backyard, the family sports focus was not solely on football. His mother has been a ski instructor for nearly 20 years. Although other kids spent Saturday mornings watching cartoons, the Bloom kids were the first on the chairlifts and the last off.
Until the youngest Bloom found a facilitator for his football jones.
His paternal grandfather, Jerry, gets credit in family lore for coaxing a 4-year-old Bloom down a ski run by throwing candy bars for him to retrieve at the bottom. He also was the person, a few years later, to cave in to his grandson's preference on NFL Sundays: The two would leave the mountain early to watch the Denver Broncos game at the family condominium.
"He would say, 'Pop, can we go home and watch football?' I knew that was important to him, and I would say, 'OK, boy, one more run, and we'll go.' And I had no trouble with him doing the run after that," Bloom's grandfather says.
A natural when it came to speed
Whether on a football field or a ski run, Bloom had no trouble standing out once he began competing. Speed was his trademark. He has run the 40-yard dash in 4.25 seconds, and he displayed a blazing brand of ski speed in coming from behind to win the U.S. Olympic trials in December.
"Watching him go through that middle part of the run," his mother says, "he was going so fast that my legs got a little weak just watching him."
His grandfather remembers one of his first ski races, a simple slalom in which Bloom was supposed to zigzag through one set of flags down the course while another skier followed a different set of flags.
"Jeremy just went straight," his grandfather says. "He got to the bottom of the hill, and I went over to him and said, 'What happened? You know you've been practicing this.' He said, 'I beat him, didn't I?' "
While in middle school, Bloom played quarterback for his midget football team and developed the ski-racing skills that would earn him a bronze medal in the 2000 junior world championships. He also gained an unflappable, quiet confidence.
"I feel like my potential really wasn't reached at Colorado because I never got that starting-receiver opportunity," says Bloom.
"I remember the first time, when he was a sophomore, that I put him in a varsity game," says Tony Davis, a former offensive coordinator at Loveland High School.
"Our head coach was a little apprehensive, saying, 'He's not ready.' I said, 'Are you kidding me? Do you think playing high school football in front of 600 people bothers him?' And it didn't."
The crowds, in fact, hold much of football's appeal for Bloom. "You have all these teammates and the pressures and the rivalry and the 80,000 people screaming and that emotion and that thrill that I can't find in skiing," Bloom says.
He thrilled many Colorado fans with his darting dashes, contorting his impossibly limber body to slip tackles and make cuts. Bloom flashed it all in his first punt return, running 75 yards for a touchdown against his father's employer, Colorado State.
His father had no quandary over whom to cheer.
"I had a split screen in my mind's eye," he says. "I saw what was unfolding in front of me, and I also watched the 7-year-old, 8-year-old, 9-year-old, 10-year-old boy in the backyard with me who incessantly would have me throw passes.
"I don't know that I'll ever experience anything quite that high again."
He might if his son wins Olympic gold in Torino or returns a kick for an NFL touchdown.
Bloom was ninth in the 2002 Olympics after delaying the start of his college football career a year to prepare. Entering the 2006 Games, Bloom has had two seasons away from football, which contributes to the doubts he must dispel between the Torino men's moguls final and the NFL draft.
Size could work against him in NFL
Foremost among the doubts is his size. The U.S. ski team lists him at 5-9, 170 pounds. Bloom says he used to add at least 10 pounds to play football. He aims to get to 185 for the NFL.
Gil Brandt, the former vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, doesn't think size will keep Bloom out of the NFL, predicting he'll be a likely late-round draft pick. But he adds it could limit Bloom's role.
"Sometimes when you're a kick returner it helps being smaller because you can make quicker cuts," Brandt says. "Where it comes into play is everybody would like taller receivers, and a lot of times your kick returner is your fourth receiver or third receiver."
Bloom won't be choosy, but he says he would like most of all to play receiver regularly, something that never happened at Colorado. His multitasking training schedule didn't allow enough time to refine things such as his route running.
"I feel like my potential really wasn't reached at Colorado because I never got that starting-receiver opportunity," he says. "But put me in an offense that utilizes a spread-receiver set — four receivers, three receivers — and I feel like I can stretch the field."
The Bloom highlight that plays most often in Colorado quarterback Joel Klatt's mind is an acrobatic, sideline-tickling, game-winning-drive reception against Colorado State on Aug. 30, 2003, Bloom's second season.
"I can remember watching the film thinking to myself, 'There's probably only one guy in the world that can make that play and get his foot inbounds,' " Klatt says. "That's Jeremy Bloom. He was twisting. He looked almost like he was skiing moguls."
Klatt spoke with Bloom the week he left his college football career behind to carve his sports fortunes full time among the moguls. "At the end of the conversation I can remember saying, 'Well, go win a gold medal now.' "
Football could still be there when Bloom comes back.