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IN THE NEWS


Brown, Clark named top athletes; Brown rink best team


By Terry L. Kolesar, Editor, terry.kolesar@usacurl.org eigning national champions


named USA Curling’s top athletes for 2013. In ad- dition, Brown’s team is 2013 Team of the Year. Brown, 40, a native of Madison, Wis., led her


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team to a very successful 2012-13 season, culmi- nating by earning the U.S. its women’s berth in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games. Tis is the fourth time that Brown, who is a seven-time U.S. national champion, has earned the women’s MVP award. She previously won in 2004, 1994 and 1988. “Being named Athlete of the Year is a great


Erika


Brown (Oakville, Ontario) and Brady Clark (Lynnwood, Wash.) have been


2013 USA Curling Male Athlete of the Year: Brady Clark.


honor, but I share it with my team,” said Brown, who works in Ontario as a physician’s assistant. “We each bring out the best in each other, and it is a sum of everyone’s commitment and energy that earned this honor for me.” Clark, 35, who curls out of Seattle’s Granite Curling Club, skipped his team


to its first men’s national championship title and led Team USA to a ninth place finish at the 2013 World Men’s Championship where he was the top ranked skip in shooting percentage throughout most of the round robin. “I was very honored when I got the news,” Clark said about learning he was


named curling’s top male athlete for 2013. “My thoughts right away turned to my team. Curling has always been a team game and always will be. Your team is helping you make shots. It takes a team around you to make every shot.” Tis is the first time that Clark has been named the association’s Male Ath-


lete of the Year. He previously was a member of two teams honored as Team of the Year. “Winning an award like this is definitely an honor, but for me the first time


you ever win a national championship is pretty special. Tose definitely are the highest honors. An award like this recog- nizes a lot of hard work that went in to being able to perform at a high level,” said Clark, who works as a senior business analyst for Liberty Mutual. “Te team was incredibly happy for me and excited for me to be honored.


2013 USA Curling Female Athlete of the Year: Erika Brown.


Our team ultimately is a great team. I know all of them felt strongly that I was performing well at the Worlds … the Nationals as well,” Clark said. “Being able to elevate our game for those key games was really important. We knew that we had to win four games in a row [at Nationals], and we had to play four of the top teams. Having to beat Brown, McCormick, Shuster and then George in the final – any time you run into those great teams, it’s going to be a battle. It was great to have that experience where we had to win multiple games in a row with our backs up against the wall.” Among the achievements this season by Brown and teammates Debbie


McCormick (Rio, Wis.), Jessica Schultz (Minneapolis, Minn.) and Ann Swis- shelm (Chicago) include a combined three World Curling Tour and Ontario Curling Tour event championship titles; winning the 2013 National Cham- pionships in February; and a fourth-place finish at the 2013 World Women’s Curling Championship in March in Riga, Latvia. Tis is the first female team to win the Team of the Year Award since 2005. Tis is the third time Brown has earned the Team of the Year Award (previously in 2004 and 1999); and second time for McCormick (2013, 2003), Schultz (2013, 2005) and Swisshelm (2013, 2003). “We are very proud to be named Team of the Year. We put in a lot of travel


2013 USA Curling Team of the Year: Ann Swisshelm (l-r), Jessica Schultz, Debbie McCormick, and Erika Brown.


and hard work this season and it has really paid off,” Brown said. “We all agree that this was the most successful overall season each of us has ever had in terms of tour victories combined with a strong finish at the World Champion- ships.” n


USA Curling (( 21


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