// BOARD OF DIRECTOR NEWS
Message from the President W
By James Pleasants, USCA President hen I was elected president of the United States Curling Associa-
tion in April, I told the Board my theme would be: “United by the love of curling.” I have little patience for people who want to divide our curling community into elite curlers and grass roots curlers, or divide us by geog- raphy. As someone who was raised in the Midwest, went to school in New York, and now lives and curls in Seattle, and someone who has curled at the worlds but still has my trophy for winning the “B” event in my first club ‘spiel, I think we sometimes exaggerate our differences and forget that our love of the great game is a much more important unifier than any of those other categories that try to divide us. We face a continuing challenge involving our need to change our gov-
ernance structure. Our current structure was adopted when we were an all-volunteer organization with a small budget, and curling was not an Olympic sport. Now we have a full-time staff of seven-plus with all the re- sponsibility and accountability that goes with being the National Govern- ing Body (NGB) for curling. Change is never easy, but a broad group of representatives of varying points of view has been at work this summer and fall, to build a consensus for a new structure that will make us more effec- tive and accountable. Stay tuned. One change this year that you have already noticed if you are reading this:
a new format for the Curling News, as a result of our partnership with Quad Graphics. We hope you find this a more inviting and interesting way to get your curling news. We are also working on improvements to our web site, and other increasingly popular forms of digital communication, as we get
// IN MEMORIAM
By David Garber, Emeritus Editor John Robert “Doc” Curtis, 97, died Aug. 12, 2012. Doc was a stalwart
curler in Portage (Wis.) from 1926 to 2011. For 85 years, Doc had been a great fellow on and off the ice. A gentleman and a scholar, Doc was a font of knowledge about curling in the Midwest, and in 2007 he researched, au- thored and published “A Military History of Portage, 1673-1975.” I last saw Doc a couple of years ago at the Portage club during a national
event hosted there. Doc, about 95 then, was hanging with a centenarian fel- low curler, the late Forrest Mosley, watching the games and having a great time. As I recall, one or both had driven their own cars to view the curling, and both were sharp as tacks. I felt compelled to write up that anecdote in a previous Curling News. Son Mark Curtis recalls that Doc “was very proud of the fact that he was
an early junior curler” and “he was always very much concerned with the traditions of curling.” It was a combination of these two affinities that led the Curtis family to establish, in 1993, and to fund annually since then, the Curtis Cup Awards for Sportsmanship at the USCA Junior National Championships. Te Curtis Cups are awarded, by peer vote, to the junior women’s and men’s nationals teams that best exemplify the Spirit of Curling both on and off the ice. Doc excelled as a curler for more than 80 years, representing Wisconsin
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in the 1957 and 1960 National Championship, and was a member of the oldest team in the U.S. Senior National Men’s Bonspiel. Off the ice, he was a long-time civic leader in Portage, and was president of the Madison Area Technical College board. He was hon- ored as the Portage Distin- guished Citizen of the Year in 1991, and in 2006 was in- ducted in to the Portage High School Hall of Fame. Doc was a veterinarian. Bob “Doc” Curtis is sur- vived by his wife of 51 years,
Kathryn, and children Martha Longbrake, Eleanor Voigt, and veteran curl- ers Mark and Susan Curtis, now curling in Rogers, Ark. (Susan is a multiple winner of the USCA Senior Women’s Nationals); grandchildren; and great- grandchildren. n
ready for the 2014 U.S. Olym- pic Team Trials for curling, in Fargo in November 2013. Curling continues to grow in
the U.S., with four new dedicat- ed facilities scheduled to open this year: two in Wisconsin (Wausau and Milwaukee), one
in Portland, Ore., and a combined hockey/curling facility in Blaine, Minn. We are happy to be able to help these clubs, with a loan to Portland and stones for Blaine, both through partnerships with the World Curling Fed- eration. Arena curling is moving curling into new areas of the country, and we now have about as many arena clubs as dedicated clubs. In recognition of this, we will be adding a new USCA championship in late spring, focus- ing specifically on arena curlers. We have a new staff person, Kim Nawyn, who is specifically tasked with
helping the growth and development of our member clubs. Look for a new initiative on grass roots training of instructors to help clubs develop and re- tain new curlers. Tere are also new training and coaching materials avail- able, and our high performance program is taking off in its second year under the leadership of Derek Brown. As we prepare to step onto bright, clean ice for the start of another curl-
ing season, take a few minutes to reflect on all that the game has given you, and plan to give back to your club, and especially to newer curlers with a friendly word of encouragement and support. Good curling. n
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