Southwestern Graduate Helps Team USA Athletes Achieve Gold

Jay Kearney, a 1995 Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame inductee and Southwestern graduate, has worked in the sports science and technology division of the USOC since 1986, working to optimize athlete’s performances. He spent the entirety of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver working with American Olympic athletes. (Submitted photo)

The accomplishments of Olympic athletes are hardly ever the work of just the athletes on the medals stand; behind every medalist stands a team of coaches and training staff in today’s world of Olympic Games.

During last month’s Winter Games in Vancouver, many Americans reached new heights – Apolo Ohno became the most decorated Winter Olympic athlete from the U.S. with a record seventh medal win. Fellow speed skater Shani Davis captivated the nation with a pair of medal victories. And the Team USA Nordic Combined ski team took its first-ever medals, silver in the team relay, and gold and silver in individual competition.

One of the people behind all of these accomplishments is a man who spent his formative years right here in Chautauqua County. Jay Kearney, a 1962 Southwestern graduate, today works as a sports physiologist for the United States Olympic Committee and spent the entire 18 days of the Olympics working directly with American athletes in long and short track speed skating, Nordic combined and biathlon.

Kearney, a 1995 Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame inductee, has worked in the sports science and technology division of the USOC since 1986, working to optimize athlete’s performances. The efforts of USOC employees are mainly behind the scenes – in non-Olympic times, Kearney and his associates work in testing and evaluation services of athletes; athlete and coach education programs and research and development. At the Winter Games, they work to support coaches and athletes. Kearney spent the Olympics located at the Performance Service Center, a facility designed to provide coaches with access to video footage to scout other teams as well as help athletes become familiar with the competition venues. The center also hosted medical coverage – Kearney was one of many on hand to offer comprehensive medical care to all Team USA athletes.

“Our general approach is to use what we call a critical factors model and attempt to increase access to and application of the sports sciences to improve training or competitive preparation,” Kearney said after returning to his office in Maine last week following the Games. “The sport sciences include nutrition, sport psychology, sports physiology, athletic training, recover and sports medicine. The concept is to work with coaches to identify what factors may be limiting (athlete’s) ability to be ‘podium prepared.’”

The work for USOC staff members like Kearney extends far beyond the actual competition. The USOC helps coordinate travel and meals for athletes and their families, and also faces the daunting task of processing all national team members for the opening and closing ceremonies.

“All athletes and team staff receive a very comprehensive set of ceremony clothes – jackets, jerseys, T-shirts, pants; a very large suitcase for each athlete,” he said. “We had a huge ballroom set up where the athletes moved from station to station collecting the material. I think we unloaded five 53-foot trailers of stuff.”

His family originally moved to Chautauqua County from Massachusetts when Kearney was just four years old. He would make the area his home for the next 20 years of his life, including time spent on the football and track teams at Southwestern as a varsity athlete. In high school, he set a school record shot put toss of 49-3 and was a starting tackle in football.

Kearney’s work with the USOC follows an Olympic-level athletics career of his own. A multi-time national champion in canoeing, he took the win in the 1980 Olympic Trials to earn a spot on that year’s Olympic canoeing team. Although he never had the opportunity to compete in an Olympics because of the U.S. Olympic boycott of the ’80 Summer Games in Moscow, he continued to win prestigious events. He was a member of the 1981 USA world championship 500 meter team which competed in England and was the boatman on the world championship team in 1983 in Finland.

The time spent representing his country as an athlete himself helped pave the road toward his current career.

“I believe that representing your nation is a by-product of true inspiration to execute on an unwavering passion to become as good as you can be in a sport,” he said. “In reality, it’s in any pursuit in life – following your passion is inspiration in and of itself.”

The 2010 Winter Games gave Kearney the opportunity to be a part of a number of memorable American Olympic moments.

“It has been a great experience,” Kearney said of his work in Vancouver. “I was at the (speed skating) oval with the coaches down on the floor level just outside the track when Shani (Davis) won both of his medals (a silver in the 1,500 meters and gold in the 1,000 meters) – it was a great thrill. Shani can be a difficult person at times but was very generous with his comments and acknowledgements that others had helped him achieve his goals and vast improvement since (the) 2006 (Winter Games).”

The opportunity to watch Ohno stand alone with the most medals of any American Winter Olympian in history was also a delight for Kearney after working with the speed skating star for years at the USOC sports science and technology offices in Colorado Springs while training in short track.

“Apolo is a great young man who was on a mission – he is incredibly focused and committed to excellence. I’ve known him for years,” Kearney said.

It was the accomplishments of the Nordic Combined squad which left the most indelible memories, though. The U.S. team had never before taken a single Olympic medal and left Vancouver with three – a gold and two silvers.

“The performances of the Nordic Combined ski-jumping and cross-country skiing team were the most memorable moments of the Games,” he said. “I have worked with them for 15 years and to see them go from never having won an Olympic medal to medaling in all three Olympic events was absolutely incredible.”

For all Olympic athletes, the training for a few moments of glory begins years before a medals event and extends well beyond the 18 days the Games last for every four years. It is the work of people like Kearney who help make Olympic gold possible.

“In general, I do not think the general public really appreciates what it takes,” he said. “Achieving Olympic success requires a complex array of ingredients: genetic potential, identification of talent, exposure to the right training environment, coaching, years of performance focused training and luck.

“Training hours probably range from a low of 400-500 hours per year for some athletes to 1,000-plus hours in others. There is also a huge commitment to travel. Most travel more than 100 days per year. It’s important to remember that these athletes love doing what they are doing – there is no potential reward that an Olympic athlete could receive that would make it worthwhile to training at this level without a passion and love for the sport.”

And while the athletes tirelessly work toward their goals, Kearney will remain part of, as he calls it, the ‘team behind the team.’

“I would say that I do not believe I am any more committed to helping our athletes succeed than the remainder of the staff,” he said. “You have to be part of the ‘team behind the team’ to do this.”