BROOKINGS Reach out, bring them in and they will curl. Thats a piece of the mission of Derek Schmidt, a community outreach officer for the Brookings Curling Club.
A lot of my purpose is to find ways to integrate into the community, reach out with opportunities, he explained.
One of those opportunities took place Monday afternoon as one of the events tied to the 11th Annual Frost Fest in Brookings: wannabe curlers, young and old, turned out at the Larson Ice Center, a premier place for ice sports, to get a look and the basics and get a little hands-on action sliding those stones down the ice.
Schmidts duties include reaching to out to other communities and their clubs to generate interest in curling and draw their members to events in Brookings.
There isnt per se a team that represents Brookings, but there is a league with many teams, he added. Those teams do sometimes branch off or collaborate together to go to other travel events for curling, such as in Fargo (ND), Aberdeen or Sioux Falls.
The curling club has been here in Brookings for the past three years: Schmidt has been actively curling for two years and working with the club for one year.
Schmidt hails from Mitchell. He came to Brookings in 2009 to attend South Dakota State University. He graduated in 2015 with a bachelors degree in graphic design and stayed here. He has worked at Wooden Legs Brewing Company for almost nine years is presently the lead brewer there. Its a vocation that has ties to curling.
They call (curling) a drinking sport, the brewer explained. Its a Scottish sport; they would cap off their nights with an event called broomstacking. The winning team goes to the pub and buys the losing team a beer.
The pub that I work at is the facilitator of broomstacking after league nights. Thats how it got exposed to me, at the pub.
As to the continuing popularity of curling, Schmidt attributes some of that to our vicinity to Minnesota helps a lot. Minnesota has a lot of active curlers. Even Wisconsin has some very old curling clubs. So weve always been close to where curling already happens in America.
With the success of the U.S. Curling Team in the past few Winter Olympics weve seen a lot of people get excited about and more curious about curling locally. A lot of these clubs have popped up in the last five or so years.
Continuing, he noted: There are some youth curling leagues out and about that use lighter stones. Really, if youre strong enough to push a 40-lb stone down the ice, you can participate in curling. It doesnt really have an age limit. Our league is composed of young, old, male, female, college professors, college students, even some senior citizens.
Its one of those sports that isnt physically taxing in any way. Its really a way to do something casual in the winter for a lot of folks.
For anyone interested in learning more about curling and maybe getting into the league on a team, go-tos include: the Brookings Curling Club facebook page and the clubs Website, brookingscurling.com.
Schmidt noted that in addition to FrostFest, the club reaches out several times a year via learn-to-curl events at which anyone interested in curling is welcome.
Weve been doing this since day-one, he added. We have about 15 to 25 folks whenever we do this.
The league right now has about 32 curlers: eight teams of four curler per team. They participate in weekly leagues.
Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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