![\"Olympic](\"http:\/\/blogs.bemidjistate.edu\/bsutoday\/files\/2013\/12\/JaredZezel.jpg\")
<\/a>Zezel (pictured, right) has taken a break from his studies to pursue his Olympic dreams and will return to BSU and complete his degree in 2014. Isaacson graduated with honors from BSU in 2006 with a degree in chemistry and a minor in mathematics.<\/p>\nZezel will be making his Olympic debut, while Isaacson is making his second Olympic appearance after helping the Americans to a 10th-place finish at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Zezel, Isaacson and the rest of Team USA, which makes its home at the Duluth Curling Club in Duluth, Minn., qualified for the Sochi games with an 8-5 win over the Czech Republic in a winner-take-all qualifier match, Dec. 15 in Fuessen, Germany.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time,” said Zezel, an exercise science major from Hibbing, in an interview to usacurl.org. “That’s why you curl, to get to the Olympics.”<\/p>\n
Team USA, which includes Zezel, Isaacson, John Shuster and John Landsteiner, won the U.S. Olympic Trials held in Fargo, N.D., in November, and needed a top-two finish at the German event to qualify for the Olympic Games. The team opened the event with a 2-2 record, but closed with a five-game winning streak to earn its trip to Sochi.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t envision I’d be back at the Olympics,” Isaacson said. “There are so many great teams you have to go through, and it’s a process and life takes over so you never know.”<\/p>\n
In January, the team will travel to Scotland for a World Curling Tour competition and will be part of Team North America at the 2014 World Financial Group Continental Cup in Las Vegas as a tune-up to the Olympic Games, which begin in February.<\/p>\n
The 2014 Games will mark the fifth consecutive winter Olympics to feature athletes with ties to Bemidji State.<\/p>\n
In total, Zezel and Isaacson are among a group of at least 17 Olympians with BSU ties and are among a group of at least 10 Olympic curlers to have attended the university. In 2006, 6 of the 10 curlers on the U.S. men’s and women’s Olympic teams, including alternates, were BSU alumni. Other BSU Olympians include five former student-athletes competing in men’s ice hockey, two in women’s ice hockey and one in baseball.<\/p>\n
Olympians with Bemidji State ties<\/strong> Olympic coaches with Bemidji State ties photo credit: World Curling Federation<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two members of the U.S. Olympic men’s curling team that will be competing at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, have ties to 91̽»¨. The team includes BSU student Jared Zezel and alum Jeff Isaacson. Zezel (pictured, right) has taken a break from his studies to pursue his Olympic dreams and will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010s","category-bsu-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1126,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/100\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n• Scott Baird; men’s curling, USA, 2006 Winter
\n• Charlie Brown; men’s ice hockey, USA, 1972 Winter
\n• Blaine Comstock; men’s ice hockey, USA, 1976 Winter
\n• Kari Liapis Erickson; women’s curling, USA, 2002 Winter
\n• Stacy Liapis Fuchsgruber; women’s curling, USA, 1998 Winter, 2002 Winter
\n• Jamie (Johnson) Haskell; women’s curling, USA, 2006 Winter
\n• Rod Heisler; baseball, Canada, 1984 Summer
\n• Jeff Isaacson; men’s curling, USA, 2010 Winter, 2014 Winter
\n• Jim McElmury; men’s ice hockey, USA, 1972 Winter
\n• Joel Otto; men’s ice hockey, USA, 1998 Winter
\n• Joe Polo; men’s curling, USA, 2006 Winter
\n• Cassandra (Johnson) Potter; women’s curling, USA, 2006 Winter
\n• Shawn Rojeski; men’s curling, USA, 2006 Winter
\n• Gary Ross; men’s ice hockey, USA, 1976 Winter
\n• Zusana Tomcikova; women’s ice hockey, Slovakia, 2010 Winter
\n• Jared Zezel; men’s curling, USA, 2014 Winter
\n• Nina Ziegenhals; women’s ice hockey, Germany, 2002 Winter<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>• Mike Liapis; women’s curling, USA, 2002 Winter<\/p>\n