Black Athletes in the Spotlight: HBCU Sports & Local Highlights
- Bryce Cheek transitioned from football to bobsled after injuries and discovered new opportunities in the sport.
- He emphasizes mastering technique over raw power as his body changes with age.
- Cheek competed across Europe and is training for the crucial 2025-26 World Cup season.
- He aims for a spot on the 2026 U.S. Olympic bobsled team and will contest the Push Championships.
(WCMH) — Before Bryce Cheek pushes a bobsled on the ice, he’s pushing sleds in the gym.
“It’s something like I never thought I was going to be doing to start off with,” said Cheek. “But once I realized that, I’m kind of skilled at it. I think it’s the best I can to use the abilities that I’ve been given to reach those goals.”
You see, Bryce never imagined he would be a bobsledder. From day one, he has always been athletically gifted. He ran track in grade school and in college, but it was football where he would become a star.
The Olentangy high school graduate went on to the University of Akron to play both sports, and then spent some time in the NFL, XFL, and Canadian Football League. Eventually though, Bryce’s body said that’s enough, and he knew it.
“When the hamstrings would not hold up, I’m not going to lie to you. Just don’t hold up as much as they should,” said Bryce. “They used to. So I started to shift my focus to bobsled a little more.”
So in 2021, he decided to attend a rookie camp for bobsled in Lake Placid, New York and just like that, his athletic future changed.
“And learning like it’s not necessarily always about how powerful, how fast you are, but there is a technique to it,” said Bryce. “So learning to be good at your technique as well, not rely so much on your skill, especially as we age, you got to kind of learn, okay, I can’t muscle everything. So I learned to kind of put everything together.”
This past winter, Bryce traveled all over Europe, pushing sled after sled in competition but this summer, he’s been pushing himself in the gym for the most important World Cup season of his life, as he aims for a spot on the 2026 U.S. Olympic team.
“This is only a small moment of what I really want to do as a small moment doesn’t define this whole big moment I’m trying to get to,” said Bryce. So kind of trying to keep that in mind and keep going, keeping your faith first and everything else from there. I think you want to go wherever you want to.”
Bryce is among about a dozen athletes hoping to push bobsleds for Team USA, and like him, many of them were recruited from other sports like track or football.
Sept. 8 is the start of the Push Championships for USA Bobsled and Skeleton, which kicks off the 2025-26 sliding season. Competitors are measured by the speed and power of their starts.
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