Bulldog graduate Smith chasing bobsled dream

Former All-State Bulldog athlete and linebacker for the Montana Grizzlies Gage Smith has already amassed a list of athletic achievements. But now he’s got his eyes on a new goal.

Since graduating from the University of Montana in May, Smith has been training as a bobsledder at rookie camps in Lake Placid, New York, and he’s trying to make it on the North American World Cup circuit.

Rookies in the sport are not paid by the teams they compete with, so Smith has started a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $15,000 to help cover his living and traveling expenses for the next four or five months as he pursues this new endeavor. As of press time, he’s raised nearly $4,000.

“As a rookie, you get no funding,” he told the Pilot in a phone interview. “It’s trying to raise money for flights, lodging, food. Essentially if I’m going to stick with it, I’m not going to have a job for four to five months. You have to pay your way to do everything your rookie year.”

Bobsled is a big jump from the gridiron or track, Smith admits, but it’s not the first leap he has taken.

Smith made a transition in 2018 choosing to step away from football at UM after accumulated concussions and their consequences began to impact him. After graduating with a degree in communications, and the question of “What’s next” hung in the air.

While he says he never expected to end up in the sport of bobsledding, it fits.

“I think for me the biggest thing was having sports your whole life to fulfill that competitiveness, waking up with that motivation. When that was no longer part of my life, I think I really missed that,” he said. “I’ve always been fascinated with Olympic sports as general, and bobsled I felt like fit the mold. You’re lifting weights, you’re running, and it does have that team aspect as well. I just thought the whole thing was pretty intriguing, and now we’re here.”

Smith reached out to a United States Bobsled Team coach, Mike Dionne, who invited him to a rookie camp in August in Lake Placid at the Olympic Training Center. He did well, and was invited afterward to compete in the U.S. National Push Championships, which he declined due to a lack of funds.

However, he received another invitation for six weeks more of training in Lake Placid, with the goal of racing on the North American Cup Circuit.

Smith says he’s not alone in his interest for the sport as a former college athlete, and many of the athletes he’s training with have similar stories.

“They recruit ex-college athletes. Pretty much everyone was either a track sprinter or a football player. Essentially they’re looking for the strongest, fastest, most powerful people they can to push sleds,” he said. “The more explosive and powerful you are, the better.”

If he succeeds, it’s not straight on to the Olympics, as he says many people assume.

Looking at the scope of bobsledding as a whole, the North American Cup Circuit might be like the junior varsity, and the World Cup circuit and the Olympics are varsity.

Varsity, then, sticks in his head as a goal long term, but right now Smith says he’s taking one thing at a time.

“For this year it’d be really cool to really learn the sport and if we are able to make it in a few North American Cup races as rookies, that would be great experience,” he said. “Your rookie year, just being around the World Cup team and the Olympic guys, you soak up so much knowledge from them. The biggest thing for our rookie year is learning how the sport works and what it would take to be successful.”

Smith’s fundraising page is available at www.gofundme.com/f/gagesmithbobsled.