Pasadena's Kirk Black Is Curling Toward Paralympic Gold

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA — The book may have closed on the 2018 Winter Olympics, but the athletes who are poised to compete in the 2018 Paralympic Games in March are just getting started, and one of those athletes is native Texan Kirk Black.

The U.S. Army veteran and former motocross racer will make his first apearance as a member of the U.S. Paralympic team and will compete for a medal in the curling event.

"This just really kind of floods all your senses, and you think, 'is this really possible,'" Black told Patch in an exclusive interview. "Then you think of walking into that stadium and holding the American flag, and then you think of the possibility of winning that medal...I think of this 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and with the US Men winning in curling, you just want to put yourself in that same spot."

In preparation for this experience, Black, 48, said he has listened to other experienced olympians and paralymians who've all told him that the opening ceremonies will be an unforgettable event.

"They have basically told me that as you walk in, everything you've dreamed is magnified by times 10," he said. "I just can't imagine that."

But that's only the start, and once the opening ceremonies on March 9 are over, it will be time to get down to business.

Medal events will begin on March 10 with Cross-Country skiing, Biathlon, and Alpine Skiing dominating the first three days of the games.

Other events, such as snowboarding, ice hockey and wheelchair curling will take place later in the week.

Black and other Paralympians left for PyeongChang, South Korea on Feb. 26, the day after the Winter Olympics ended.

Black, who was born in Pasadena, now lives between his hill country home in San Antonio, Texas in the summer months and his winter training area in Madison, Wisconsin.

Black said the training in Texas is difficult because the ice is different, which is why he trains six months out of the year in Wisconsin, where the ice is better and it's lot less expensive to train.

Black tried curling for the first time while participating in the National Veteran Wheelchair Games in 2007, and loved the sport.

"It was the first time I had a Paralympic coach come up to me and tell me they thought I could possibly take this to the next level," he recalled.

The prospect of competition on a larger stage excited Black, because it was his first real competition since a motocross accident in 2002 left him a paraplegic.

He's spent a year after his accident getting his mindset, and focus on finding competitive events for wheelchair bound athletes, and it seemed it would be curling.

But after his initial foray into the sport, and hearing there was a chance of being competitive, Black waited on the call fro the Paralympic coach.

But that call didn't come.

He refocused again, and tried other sports and eventually sho tarchery with the U.S. Men's Paralympic Archery Team for three years.

In 2014, Black was in Aspen, Colorado to support the veterans participating in Alpine and Cross-Country skiing, and tried his hand at curling again.

Like before, a Paralympic coach approached him, who told Black he was good, and that he wanted to work with him.

Black, however, wasn't buying it.

"I told him I'd heard that story before," he said.

But this time, it was different.

When Black returned to his hotel room that evening, he had an email from the coach he'd met 7 years earlier, who apologized and invited him to a veteran's camp in Lake Placid, New York.

Black took him up on his offer, and spent three days working with the curling coach, which set him on his Paralympic journey.

"I got home from that camp and told my wife I had fallen in love with this sport, and there is a chance I could possibly go to the olympics...," Black said.

Two weeks later, Black and his wife and daughter packed their bags and headed to Wisconsin.

His family also made the trip to South Korea and will watch the competition.

"They support me 100 percent," he said. "They are here along this journey, and withouth them, there is no way I could come here and even think about doing this."

Click this link to follow the Paralympic events happening this month in PyeongChang, South Korea.

The 2018 Paralympic Winter Games will hold closing ceremonies on Sunday, March 18.

Image: Courtesy World Curling Federation: Kirk Black practices his curling technique for the 2018 Paralympic Games.

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