Julia Clukey and Jack Elder

00:01 I'm Julia clukey. I'm 34 years old. It's November 1st 2019. We are here in snowy Colorado Springs and my interview partner is Jack Elder and we are both luge Olympians follow Sports Meats.

00:17 My name is Jack Elder. I'm 78 years old today date of November 1st 2018 2019 location Sonny, Colorado Springs. My partner has Julia clukey and we were both lose nuts.

00:35 Sojag tell me how you got started in the sport of luge. He had on this really cool blue warm-up suit, but the USA are chasten stripe down the lake and I thought how do you get one of those so I wound up and I asked him and he said while I was in the Olympic Games in Innsbruck just 30 miles away from here. They gave us these uniforms. That's your fault. I look at these tall skinny guy and I thought what did this guy do in the Olympic Games after what are you doing? He said I was in the sport of rodeo and I said and you go down and see so that's how I got started.

01:30 And you how did you get started? So similar serendipia situation, I grew up in Maine. I was very active as a kid and one summer day friend and I read in the newspaper that the US luge team was coming to Portland Maine to host to try out as it happened. They were able to put rollerblade wheels on sleds and travel around the country to introduce the sport and the bottom part of that advertising said that we get a free t-shirt if we came out for the day and when you're 11 years old, you'll take do just about anything to get something free and so we went out for the afternoon tried. It had a great time and then a few months pass and I got invited to go to Lake Placid New York and try the the sport in the winter time. And again, I had had a lot of fun in the summer the thought of missing school for a week wasn't terrible idea at the time as being an eleven-year-old went to Lake Placid took one run on the old Lake Placid track and was completely hooked on the sport. It was like nothing I'd ever done.

02:30 For a knew that I had found something that I had to keep doing.

02:38 And what was it like for you to compete in the Olympics in the 70s?

02:43 The 70s that was still the traditional Olympic games you can come into it yet.

02:51 I had missed being on the 60 18 because of a political decision and getting to the 72 games was really important to me. I was 30 years old. I was ending my athletic career and I could see it as in a full adult and to me that the big X is a questions of people are always asking what's the most important thing about it and it was being there standing at the opening ceremonies surrounded by the world's greatest athletes and I got to be with them. It wasn't as though that I belong there. It's like I snuck in and nobody knew that I would that I got in there and that was it, you know, it was I didn't realize how it was going to be the mark for the rest of my life that when I walk into a room people go. Oh, yeah. He's an Olympian to answer that question really important.

03:51 End.

03:53 I see that you've got taken your Lue career, even further you're now working with the United States Olympic Committee. And I think that is really special. Tell me about that. Yeah, I've been working with a US Olympic and paralympic committee for 5 months is the director of athlete Services trying to support better communication to athletes trying to make sure they understand the service is available to them understand how to navigate some sometime very complicated World of Sports when you have Angie B's Uso PC and and trying to make that a better process for athletes and enhance the athlete experience and loving it. It's been a great fit being able to come by my athletic background and the world that I love so much and then my professional background having worked in HR for a number of years supporting sort of that human people strategy had a number of Corporations to be able to bring that to this world has been really special and to be able to look for areas of improvement, you know.

04:54 So much about competing as winning on the track or winning on the field, but I think we can also support our athletes to win off the field to be ready for transitioning out of sport and I'm really happy to be a part of what's happening now and that the energy we haven't really just bringing the human element back into sports back into athletes and supporting them to win and all aspects of life. And it's I've been very fortunate to to be a part of it for the past five months and look forward to what's ahead and how how about you how has your being a part of the Olympic movement? Was it carried through your life and those values, you know been a part of the path you took post-career the beginning it was over I came home and I was still working in San Francisco is a printing plates salesman and I went to a trade school became a

05:54 Got into the radio business and spent about about 10 or 11 years working in the radio business and being a radio Gypsy. I worked on the air. I was a Salesman. I was doing various other things and it it taught me how to encapsulate my ideas my thoughts my talking it's hard for people to sometimes know we're beginning middle and an end is but that it taught me how to do that. And then I got out of I got out of San Francisco for I was living at that time and went to Bend Oregon and was there working and radio station and then I left Bend, Oregon. I just got too big for the market or my head got too big for the market and I moved to Portland and one of them Portland. This guy was promoting the idea of bidding for the Winter Olympic Games.

06:48 And he was saying dumb things like, you know, he's going to put ice skating on a lake and I turn down. I know you can't do that. If you're so smart help me so that became my second career, which I do to this day's 30 years now and what I learned was that Olympic sport generally speaking was operated by amateurs or Zack to 78. Just barely passed and they didn't know how to run the business. So I in my wisdom decided to help them run their businesses and I became a consultant to them eventually opened a bingo game use that for my funding source continue to this day and we use that money to donate to them under right some of their Spencer's teach them how to be what they do and make them better at it. So the Olympics really really really taught me how to be somebody afterwards.

07:48 Underfall

07:51 Now if you weren't wish games where you at so I can feed it in the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada.

08:07 The correct me if I'm wrong, but the Kraken in Vancouver Whistler was actually built in the old style of a speech instead of what is called a gliding track post about 1980 after the games in in Lake Placid. They started slowing the tracks down to make him up a little bit safer. But also to make it so that they were combination tracks with bobsled and luge and so the bobsleds needed longer open or open track, which meant that for the lose people who usually have little teeny tiny curves to go through all of a sudden they were going through these long first got bigger.

09:07 But that tracking like in Whistler top speed on and is 9294 miles an hour that used to be the speed at the track of carnix. And it in Germany in that top speed there was about 95 the other tracks 84 to 88 miles an hour. So that's the big difference. Yeah. It was definitely a wild ride on the road. Again. The speed was there the technical element was there and it was one of those tracks. When you you knew when you had put a good run together. When you got to the bottom you didn't have to guess cuz you could feel the pressure pushing you and then going back to you know, they started combining tracks in the 80s and 90s for cost reason probably first and foremost, very expensive to build tracks and then has the technology of sleds and Equipment Advanced, you know, there's different elements to consider with the construction of tracks. So certainly have changed over time from being very technical luge tracks to know Adam is speed a lemon and I can say

10:07 It's a very fun track this light on and compete on Canadians like winter sports and they put on a great games. I have not yet. I'm just one year shy of the the age cutoff for competing in the Masters. You have to be 35 and retired for four years. I believe is the rule for USA luge. So encrusting on that this coming April be 35 and also will be four years retired from the sport of luge. So definitely on our radar and it's always fun to get old sliders together and there's nothing quite like that feeling on the track as you can imagine and experience to it's always in the back of your mind how good we had it, you know the position of the Precision the speed that feeling of being in complete control, but right on the edge of chaos every single day so looking forward to revisiting it on the master side. Certainly we are cool.

11:07 You can't realize it everytime you go down the track the adrenaline kicks in and takes 15-20 minutes 30 minutes before it burns off today. That's mine shots of adrenaline back to the Masters 4 years ago and truly. I was really good in my own mind. I got there. I realized how old I had become because my reflexes were poor my sight was even worse as finished dead-last in the Masters had a wonderful time because everybody was so polite to me a pod sled and couldn't couldn't control it. I had to go back to a training sled because I just I couldn't Master it in 3 days gee whiz.

12:07 Did I get less?

12:11 What was your what do you consider your biggest accomplishment in the sport of luge or not? Not in this world, I guess.

12:17 I think my biggest accomplishment is most recent, you know, it's now I have a business where I have 15 nonprofits it all live in the same building. I might take care of them. I have the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame and Museum there. I'm the curator of that as well. I get to do stuff. I never dreamed I could get to do it. Now. I am the historian for the US Olympians and I get to dig in all of his books and I get to find out who with what and I fight I get to discover Olympians that were that never nobody ever knew about and then talk about them. Damn Gerson is a guy nobody ever heard of he created us Olympians Association in 1946. He was an unknown Russell router Chicago. You nobody knows about him. I love talking about these guys. What about you? I would say my biggest accomplishment in sports was actually sort of the quest to make the 2014 Olympic

13:17 Team, which I actually came up short in and the reason I sure that is after the 2010 games. I had a number of personal setbacks physical setbacks. I had I was diagnosed with Arnold Chiari syndrome and had to have decompression surgery on the base of my skull my younger sister died by Suicide and was a great personal loss for me and so really pivoted my life in 2011 and 2012. I started my summer camp for girls that year getting back to my community. And so when I went into that 2012-2013 2013 2014 season I really had become a new person and and understood the balance of sport in life. And that sport is something you do and you can love but it's not who you are. And even though I came up short for those games, you know, I had a phenomenal run up to it finishing top six in the world on nearly every competition. And so just being able to bounce back from both the physical injury the emotional injury and return to the stage was probably my proudest accomplishments.

14:17 In the sport Illusionist and taught me so many lessons again about balance in life about overcoming adversity about pushing forward and and really at the end of the day. It's the people that matter to with you and you know, everything else is secondary to that sport work things like that nature. That's a that was that for me. What is 24 years old for? Yeah. I was definitely an eye-opener for me particularly coming in the world of sport where it's really easy to be very tunnel-visioned on what you're doing and how you're trying to be the best and you know life doesn't stop for sport or for anything for that matter. So so all the lessons I learned through, you know, trying to come back to the sport and trying to make that second Olympic team is are the things that I carry with me the most today more so than competing in the Olympics.

15:17 Don't curious what back when you were sliding. What were the things you wish people knew about the sport luge? What were those questions? You got all the time about our crazy sport of luge. Everybody was still tinkering with the sleds fan but Feldman who was on the 64 game at that point. They were using sleds that were made in Germany and they were up pills pills Z and it was made by a furniture manufacturer the back bar on the sled, you know, the one where you lay down your back gets it was flat flat across so you can figure out when you're going through pulling 5G through a curve that bar is pounding in your spine while he and one other person decided they were going to make that a sway bar so that your back would fit down into it and it was nice and round amazing Innovation drop their chest down for in lower their profile put people into a total recline and

16:17 Increase the speed from about 65 miles an hour to about 75 miles an hour and it's so that was a thing is it we were getting changes in the technology of the sled and they was being done by the East Germans in the west Germans, especially the East Germans. These tournaments did the first time ever they did title wind tunnel and they spent many months in the wind tunnel just on shape and when they arrived in Sapporo and 72 they came in with brand new sleds fiberglass sheets and hidden away and nobody never seen him before typical of these Germans. They come in with bags full sleds and pull them out and they win of the nine medals in the Olympic Games. They won eight and they just blew us away on technology. So that's what I wish we knew what that plastic seats.

17:17 Yeah, I'm not sure those that those conversations have ended technology is something that's always advancing in the sport of luge and pushing the envelope and trying to find new ways to dampen the the rattles on the tracks better are dynamic position everything so I can save hasn't changed and who was one of the best writers at that time and he came to Naples to European championships in and turn it safe and he brought his sleigh and he was always tinkering always coming up with something new and he brought his sled single sled up and he had a around the front cross piece. They're in there was no pods in those days had something look like the the horn on a saddle and it was red and it was sitting there and Andy Friday sled Nederland it up against the let's start Hut

18:15 And everybody went oh, what's he done now and everybody's going over and looking at this sled and 4 for an hour or two before we're going getting ready and going down and everybody's taking their turn to they come up a good see that and they go and they look at it trying to figure out what was finally it was his turn. He walked over picked up the sled put it on the start.

18:40 Sat down on the sled looked over at everybody and smiled and reached down and under the screw on the bottom side of it took it off and flipped it to somebody on his team. He did it to play with her head the whole time distract us from what we were supposed to be doing and it was all about him playing with our head.

19:02 More about what

19:04 The mindset we have a question that you want to know.

19:11 What it's like to need to get into a certain mindset the One-Stop. So the mental aspect of the sport is huge and I can imagine it was when you are competing as well and curious to know. What was your preparation before a big competition. Do I have? No, we have no instructors. We have no trainers. We had no coaches. We were all doing it ourselves. We were discovering it. We were trying to find out what to do after the the first three or four years of being in Germany when I was a currant tea, my nickname was to start my stir the crash master how to crash after that after I finally made a few clean runs then I started to understand why people were so quiet

20:11 It was a matter of thinking about what you were doing and understanding how to relax. I tried to explain this to people outside of sports and one of the guys that really understood it was built on his brother the Catholic decathlete Champion. His brother was a fighter pilot and when I told him about being on a luge sled and hitting 95 miles an hour and I said, it seemed like X or to slow down and I could relax and sort of sort of think about other things. I could see people on the side of the track words before I couldn't and it was like this is what is all about. I want to do this more at that was what what it was for me, but took me.

20:59 4 years five years to get that. How about you? Yeah, I definitely over the course of my career had to figure out how to create consistency from training to competing and not allowing yourself to get Aunt up for competition and the some of the ways I would do that as one making sure you know that prep time is so important to summer training making sure you're ready and I think as the sport of all we got a little bit more aware of what muscles needed to know to control this led neck muscles to start things of that nature journaling with a really huge tool for me throughout my career really, you know both from a sort of how I was feeling mentally and physically and is really tracking that overtime and using it really as a you know, those aces in the back pocket you could read through it and be like, wow, you did a lot to get ready for this competition. You're ready to rock and roll and then to your point. It's you know when you get on those handles everything really

21:58 Why it's down, you know, you just feel so it's so where you belong I think when you sit on a sled and get ready to go for a run, at least it was for me and similar when you pull off those handles time does slow down and you're just the best runs or when you're just allowing yourself to feel it on the way down and knowing that you are in control of the sled and if you have to make adjustments, you can do that. And then the other biggest thing again was just recognizing that loses its amazing Sport and I love what I'm doing. But if I do great if I have a bad run, you know, the people are so going to love me and my friends are still going to give me high-fives and my life is you know going to go on and I think sort of losing that pressure of you know sport is everything was a huge tool for me and my son for me to learn and some of the best races

22:51 Of my career happened when I just was so felt so well-balanced in life and that I was felt so lucky to be there and be competing and doing this for that I loved.

23:02 It was it was much the same for me because we were more on our own and we were had lessons support. I remember I saw a movie at that time that it was comparison. It was Robert Redford movie downhill racer and the movie is a probably two hours long and maybe 10 minutes of the scanning. And the rest of it is all the time in hotels cars buses trains airplanes and people would go get to go sledding and it is fun. But most of it is really long and boring and tiring and dealing with the same people and dealing with your teammates and some of them aren't really all that nice to be around and and they go. Oh you make it sound like work and I said, well sometimes it is sometimes it is. Yeah. I think that's a big difference when you were competing. There wasn't sort of a centralized team.

24:02 So you certainly just came together with teammates during those competitions? Where is when I you know started competing we had our team is based in Lake Placid New York at that time. And so we were able to build that community allimed at a very young age. So when I think about walking away from the store at the hardest thing was the people, you know, who were like a second family to me. I'm curious about how sort of your teammates what role they played during your career. And are you still in contact with them? Is it a tight-knit community or contact with a few of them? But felt mine are the 64-team. He was one of the guys that really got me started and he will be did really well in the game. He was in third place until the 4th run finished 13th. Overall. Then Terry O'Brien. I roomed with him most of the time when we're on the road. Terry was on three Olympic teams, and then Frank Jones my doubles partner.

25:03 And Frank, I just saw Frank last year in and Lake Tahoe and it was really fun the same as serendipitous. He was there visiting his nephew is getting married and I was visiting my daughter and we just happened to see one another on Facebook and go away. So we got together. But yeah, we get Murray and I went to Jim Murray was on with four teams. We went to Lake Placid last year together do the rates and have a great time.

25:41 Yeah, I would say for me very close with teammates, you know, again, I started at age 11. I started competing on the junior World Cup tour traveling to Europe at age 13 and really was you know, I feel like I spent as much time on the road with my with my lose family as I did with my real family from a very young age on and so very close with that group Core group of athletes. We still talk all the time group chats and stuff. You know, it's pretty remarkable. I don't see him near as much as I hope we're all around the country, Utah and I'm in Colorado now Lake Placid, but the moment we're together. It's like nothing has changed. It could have been a year and when you know each other so well and you suffer together as young athletes, you know, those summer training sessions and and just know each other through success and failure through the sport, you know, I think

26:41 Sport like luge

26:43 Is a special type of person that's drawn to this board and when you experience that together, it's it's such a bonding feeling and so feel it feel very fortunate for all the teammates, you know, Grapist Preston griffall, Erin Hamlin Ashley Walden. So you were on the road internationally at the age of 13. I thank my mother for her allowing it to happen because I I have a nephew who's 10 and I think all the time if I would go in a couple years and I'm not sure that I would and so that's something that at the time I certainly didn't recognize the sacrifice family is make for athletes to do the thing that they love and so when I look back at you know, a great gratitude to my parents for allowing me to take up the sport of Illusion, not sure any parent grows up watches their kid grow up and hopes that they get involved in a sport like lose when there's only two tracks or

27:43 Play country in most of the tracks around the world. But I think even as you know, getting involved in the sport at a young age, they just knew that I was had found something that I love so much and didn't want to take that away from me. And I also think that by the time they realize how into the sport I was it was too late. I think along the way they're like sure go do a try out for a day. Sure go to Lake Placid for a week and not realizing it would turn into you know, they're 13 year old daughter being gone for four to five months a year and so definitely still regularly my father passed away, but my mother I thank her frequently about giving up, you know, parenting a little bit and that experience watching your child grow so that I could go and do this Ford. I love I was 22 when I first got on the sled. I was in my my first real race with the world championship. I went to the World Championships never having gone to successfully down at

28:44 Oh and finish the 71st out of 120 sleds in Davos Switzerland and it was like it was so formidable to me. I had no understanding what I was doing. Then I wound up living in Birches Garden joining The Birches Garden Rotary Club, and I've worked at nights at the bartender. And when I got on the track during the daytime and I did it with the German national team and I went there and they let me that's the amazing part is I never understood why they let me go on the track with them because I had no I didn't have any skills. Nobody was teaching me and I think it was part of the politics of trying to increase the number of nations participating. I was the only American in Europe who was on his sled. So I think they allowed me to be dumb and crafts.

29:44 If I would have been different if you were beating them might have cut off access nearby one. That was fun. Yeah, it's interesting to hear that cuz Community was apart of sport than + communities of hardest sport now, but in different ways, I think it's great to hear.

30:09 So let's let me ask you about transitioning away from the sport. I think we spent a lot of time as athletes talking about the good times and the competition but every athlete wakes up one day and knows it's it's time, you know, and I'm curious to know what that moment was for you if you can remember that moment. It was September October coming up and departure for Europe in November with the norm because we we go to there in November and hope to get there and there would be guys because it was all it wasn't refrigerated. They didn't turn it on. We had to wait for the season to change until I would get to Germany in November and then start training December.

30:57 But the year that I didn't go was I'm not going and the other guys are and I'm not with them and it was a big hole and that whole stayed there for

31:13 Another year or two until I filled it with going to radio school and become a broadcaster because you it was something else that I had to throw myself into totally to block out that other stuff. I did come back when I was 43 convince somebody to get on a sled behind me and doubles idiot. Never done it before we finished third in the Nationals qualified for the Olympic trials.

31:47 And I retired the next day. It hurts so much to do business. I recognize that I have other skills with some natural skills that I had from before and I had this entree.

32:09 Now when you walk in the door and somebody you've been in the Olympic Games everything seems a little more accessible because I've been at one of the high points and walking through that door isn't difficult anymore. You probably found the same thing. I did. I I feel very fortunate that I walked away from the sport on my own terms and not all athletes get to leave on their own terms cuz they're injury cause of circumstances cuz I'm not being good enough anymore not recognizing it, you know, so I retired in 2016 from the sport. I originally was planning to go towards 2018, but I mentioned I had Arnold Chiari syndrome and a lot of the symptoms had come back and was just struggling with really severe headaches day and day out and woke up one day and just said, you know the life I want 20 years from now probably not worth it to continue to do a sport like

33:09 Luge and was just exhausted pushing through workouts. And so made the the decision that it was time and also felt fortunate to have sort of the State of Mind to know I'm sure I can make another Olympic team, but I'm not sure that would change anything in my life. I would have been fortunate to have started to build other pieces of my life through my summer camp for girls through finishing my degree starting to work professionally and just like you said finding other skills and other things that you really enjoy that are also things that were part of your sport life, but that you can take those pieces with you and so retired in 2016 and and feel like

33:48 Transitioned okay away still miss it at times. There's nothing like again sitting on those handles that we talked about earlier. But but grateful for the time I had in this board and all that it taught me and that it's you know will continue to be a big part of my life and then I can take those lessons forward and continue to give back to my community in the way that I feel like I was so fortunate to gain through sport. I still have a sled with wheels on it and hopefully USA luge isn't listening for about 7 years doing a lot of work in my home state of Maine with young people. Just trying to get them to recognize that you're never too young to find what you're passionate about. You're never too young to start working hard at something I would use that slide to give Little Lou's rides around the gyms and you know, maybe down the road will hear of another main Olympic loser.

34:51 Yep, it's oh, it's closed. But yeah.

34:57 Yeah, so I my summer camp for girls is one of my favorite passion projects that I was able to run for seven years 2012 to 2019. It was a not a sport space camp but really focused on self confidence knowing who you are sticking up for who you are and in trying to make good decisions for yourself. I I feel so passionately that the more we can expose young people to different activities to different ideas the more better off we'll be as a society, you know, it keeps me up at night knowing the limitations that are sometimes they are for kids to be involved in sports to be involved in Arts and Music and really wanted to use my platform as an Olympian to give back to my community. Just knowing how finding something I loved at such a young age was such a Northstar for me growing up in and not every young person get that because they're not exposed to activity. So is a 10-day camp on a lake.

35:57 Can half the day with a creek elem focus on self confidence or body image or some young girls specific topics to empower young girls to be their best self. And then the rest of the day was very summer camp swimming taking Diane's, you know Sports in the field and just really proud of those seven years and the more than 700 girls that we brought to camp and almost three-quarters of those were on scholarships are really trying to serve under privilage girls in the community and and provide them with an experience that hopefully would stick with them as they entered those for middle middle school and high school. Here's a fruit. I came from a family that was a poor dustbowl immigrants didn't really believe in sports. I got involved with it because it was a distraction and the sport that really made me Focus was Judo. I got my black belt when I was 17, and I was a little bit angry.

36:57 Take out all my frustrations on people and then

37:04 Because you do it so important to me you taught me discipline and it taught me how to refocus it taught me how I could overcome and it gave me a look into a culture that was filled with self-discipline. And so I stayed involved with that through most of my life. I was on the board of directors of a judo Club in Portland and help them reorganize into they were they were in the old old style of sport where one man with a high blood belt Randy everything and told everybody what to do for a benevolent dictatorship and I taught him how to be a democracy in their club and I'm still a consultant with them and we still donate money to them but it is so fun to see kids now doing the same thing that I did but for different reasons and they're they're doing it for fun. I did it for two to wear out where

38:04 The aggression and anger many purposes and I think to you know, there's nothing more powerful for me than seeing a young person get it and I'll get this feeling I know I'm good at something and I enjoy something and then also so often it can be a community for a young person that might not have that Community feel at home or that connection and I just love seeing, you know, again that you can see the moment it changes for someone that they believe in themselves and believe that they can do anything with hard work and if they put their mind to it, so it's pretty special that we get to use our continued to use their platform that way and it's very inspiring that I hope you know, when I'm 72 that I'm still able to keep the connection to sport in the liver is I'm the way you have your fun. Now everybody looks at me, like wow, you've done that you're doing so much now. Why don't you retire like I'm having too much fun anymore.

39:04 I get up I go I do. I have fun. I walk out I can leave anytime. I want to I can go anytime question for me for you is what are the three words you use when you think of loose still to this day not painful hopefully really fun.

39:30 The other one was the exciting. It was really exciting and then the respect.

39:36 I really did to this date when you tell somebody that you did lose and they there is that moment of recognition that go. Oh, wow. You did lose. That's really scary sometimes.

39:58 And you I would say for me to three words that I still think of when I think of the sport luge are Precision community and joy, so pretty similar and and I think to your point I get the when people hear I did the sport of luge I get the same sort of look and I say, well it's not for everyone or every one but I think yeah Precision joy and Community. Well, it must have been great to have been in the Olympic Games. Yes. I met an Olympian and she said when they ask you did you win a medal? There's more I said really want to Gold Medal and I say yeah, I won a gold medal and they go wow.

40:52 Diesel world record the public expects everybody to be gold medal winners in the vast majority of Olympians are not but we win in a different manner. Absolutely and I think regardless if you're on the podium or not, every athletes gone through the same thing to get their overcoming adversity finding themselves through Sport, and those are shared experiences that I think last long after the closing ceremony for all athletes. And so I think we're lucky to be a part of the small group they giving back but what you can do after sport. Thanks Jack. You're welcome.