PARK CITY, Utah—About 18 months ago, Ruthann Savage's fiancé quit his job and left town, leaving her to raise their child and pay their bills—a hardship that, in December, resulted in the loss of their home.
"If we'd had his paycheck, we wouldn't have lost the house," Ms. Savage, a nurse, says as she weeps.
But she really isn't all that angry at her fiancé, Bill Schuffenhauer. Last month, he returned home from his travels with something much rarer than money—a berth on the 2010 U.S. Olympic team. And he is promising, as he did before the 2006 Winter Games, that after leaving Vancouver, he will retire from athletics, this time for keeps. "He is a boy, a sweet boy," Ms. Savage, 27 years old, says.
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Ramin Rahimian for The Wall Street Journal
Bobsledder Bill Schuffenhauer, with his fiancée Ruthann and their sons.
Mr. Schuffenhauer, 36, is a bobsledder. Bobsledders—who begin their competition this weekend on the same course that claimed a luger's life—have an especially hard time calling it quits.
In America, where the sport gets little attention, few kids dream about bobsled careers. So the U.S. team recruits its bobsledders from among the vast pool of former college athletes who won't—or can't—stop chasing athletic glory. The 12-member U.S. men's bobsled team consists almost entirely of onetime college football and track stars, who tend to possess the speed and strength needed for sled-pushing success. Their average age is about 30.
"For those of us who don't want to quit competing, bobsled is the perfect sport," says Brock Kreitzburg, a former collegiate wide receiver and member of the 2006 U.S. bobsled team. Although an injury kept him off this year's Olympic squad, he's considering the 2014 Games, when he'll be 37.
Bobsledding doesn't pay well. Even its medal-winning participants are too obscure to secure lucrative sponsorships. The U.S. team's dues-paying members—typically young athletes who double as fans—number only 400, compared with 30,000 for the U.S. ski team.
The recession has made things worse. About half the U.S. bobsled team participated in Home Depot Inc.'s Olympic sponsorship program, in which athletes received full-time pay—about $25,000 a year—and benefits for working only half time.
Last year, squeezed by the housing downturn, Home Depot dropped the 16-year-old program, and says it now offers jobs under "regular terms" to athletes, meaning it expects an hour's work for an hour's pay.
That's left some former beneficiaries, including Mr. Kreitzburg, hurting. Nearly $60,000 in debt—much of it on high-interest credit cards—Mr. Kreitzburg now is seeking work as a Hollywood stuntman. At 33, he says, "I can pretty much fit everything I own into my car," a 2001 Nissan Maxima.
Kevin Helliker joins us live from Vancouver with his observations on the first week of the games. Plus, he discusses a 35-year-old Olympic bobsledder who finds it hard to retire despite financial hardships.
Still, the bobsled team expresses only gratitude toward Home Depot.
"They supported us for many, many years, and they stopped the program in order to save other jobs," says Darrin Steele, chief executive of the U.S. Bobsled & Skeleton Federation, who himself used to be a Home Depot manager.
When Bill Schuffenhauer met Ruthann Savage in a Utah restaurant in 2004, he was a local hero. First he had overcome a childhood spent in multiple foster homes to become a nationally ranked decathlete at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, his hometown. Then he had switched sports and won a silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games as part of the first American bobsled team to reach the podium in 46 years.
Yet the instant he met Ms. Savage in that restaurant, Mr. Schuffenhauer says he knew she was the real prize. "It was love at first sight," he says, reciting the date: "Oct. 1, 2004."
Although only 21 years old, she had a nursing degree and was helping deliver babies in a hospital maternity award. "I was very impressed by her focus and by her stability," he says.
Barely a year later, Ms. Savage gave birth to their son, but not before they purchased a 1950s house in Ogden, relying entirely on her savings for a down payment.
At that time, the 2006 Games in Italy were only months away, and Mr. Schuffenhauer vowed to retire afterward and start earning money.
He soon found himself selling payroll services for Wells Fargo & Co. in Utah. The job suited him well enough, he says, and Wells Fargo confirms he was a valued salesman.
But Ms. Savage recalls him during that time as miserable — obsessed with his and his team's subpar performance at the Torino Games. In 2008, when the team stopped in Utah for a competition, Mr. Schuffenhauer showed up to watch, then found himself suiting up. "After that, I couldn't get Vancouver out of my mind," he says.
Any thought of his quitting his job and rejoining the team worried Ms. Savage: They had a mortgage, a car loan and other bills. Mr. Schuffenhauer also had a child from an earlier relationship to help support. But Mr. Schuffenhauer assured her that he would regain the part-time job he had held as part of the Home Depot Olympic program. As a Utah legend, he imagined he could also win a few local sponsors.
But within weeks of his return to the bobsled team, the economy crashed. Soon afterward, Home Depot ended its Olympic program. A bike company donated an expensive model for Mr. Schuffenhauer to auction from his Web site, but he didn't even sell enough tickets to cover its value.
Other sponsorships he pursued fell through. "Every plan I had," says Mr. Schuffenhauer, "just crumbled."
Except his plan to win a spot on the 2010 Olympic team. About 20 athletes were competing for a dozen slots, most of them younger than Mr. Schuffenhauer.
"With age, Schuffenhauer has managed to gain skill without losing ability," says Mr. Steele, the bobsled executive.
As he and his teammates competed in World Cup events across Europe last year, it wasn't easy calling his wife because he was too broke and she was too upset. Soon, one of their cars was repossessed. Then, in December, her lender ordered them out of their home, on which they owed about $170,000. The only suitable rental home Ms. Savage could find wouldn't allow the German shepherd she and Mr. Schuffenhauer had bought last summer for Corben, their 4-year-old son.
"We had to get rid of Harley," Corben recalled one recent evening, his lower lip quivering.
"The situation back home just kept getting worse and worse," recalls Mr. Schuffenhauer.
In January, however, Mr. Schuffenhauer officially made the U.S. Olympic team. One night this month, he brought home a duffel bag filled with the bounty of making the team—designer clothes, a sleek-looking helmet, an Under Armour bobsled outfit. Little Corben snatched up a Captain America headset and tried it on, dancing.
Watching the little boy dig through the duffel bag in search of other goodies, Ms. Savage remarked that he would always remember his father competing in the Olympics.
Write to Kevin Helliker at kevin.helliker@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1
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