The Winter (Olympics) Tale: How His Mom’s Curling Career Inspired Minnesota’s Desmon Sachtjen
Desmon Sachtjen had his choice of sporting influences growing up.
His father, Karl, was a standout Division III football player and a long-time football coach. His sister, Sierra Sachtjen, seven years his senior paved the way to swimming with a career at the University of Northern Iowa.
But one of the most profound sports memories of Desmon’s upbringing came via his mom, Tracy Sachtjen. Not only did she help him get into swimming, as an administrator at her local YMCA in Wisconsin. She showed Sachtjen where sports can take him: Most notably, to the Olympics.
Desmon Satchjen; Photo Courtesy: Craig Lassig/Minnesota Athletics
It was 12 years ago that Sachtjen watched his mom, an Olympic curler, reach winter sports’ highest stage at the Vancouver Olympics. As the 2022 Winter Olympics are set to begin in Beijing – in the former swimming venue from the 2008 Games, once dubbed the Water Cube, being transformed to the Ice Cube – Desmon Sachtjen’s journey as a swimmer at the University of Minnesota owes a debt to his mom’s sporting prowess on frozen water.
“It was crazy,” Sachtjen, a junior backstroker for the Golden Gophers, recalled last week. “From what I remember, the excitement and everything, I’ve never been to an event like that.”
Tracy Sachtjen was an accomplished curler for more than two decades. She was part of the rink, led by Debbie McCormick, that won a U.S. title in 2009, a fifth women’s national title Tracy was part of. Sachtjen (nee Zeman) won a World Championship in 2003 on McCormick’s team to go with a silver medal from Worlds in 1999. She also won a U.S. mixed national title.
Desmon remembers his mother devoting a lot of time to curling, which often took her away from home in Lodi, Wisc., either to Canada or Europe for competitions and training opportunities. As a young kid, Desmon regularly hung around the curling club, Tracy bringing him along before his school years.
Being so young, he didn’t travel to many competitions then. But he was in third grade when Tracy earned the alternate spot with McCormick’s squad at the Vancouver Games.
It’s a competition Desmon remembers fondly. His mom organized a curling outing for his class and Skyped into school from Vancouver. Desmon watched the Opening Ceremonies from home, but he and family spent 10 days in Vancouver to catch the bulk of the competition.
McCormick’s team had a rough tournament, going 2-7 in round-robin play to finish last out of 10 teams. Tracy didn’t get on the ice for a match, but she did get to celebrate her 41st birthday in Vancouver, Desmon and a group of fans serenading her from the stands. It was one of many sporting memories from those two weeks that Desmon cherishes.
“I got to go and watch the women’s hockey gold medal game against Canada,” he said. “That to me was super cool, to see them win a gold medal was very cool. I got to watch moguls skiing and I got to meet a lot of athletes, which was really, really cool to see at such a young age.”
Curlers will call the former Water Cube home at this year’s Olympics, thanks to newly installed detachable ice sheets. The curling competition has expanded to three events, with a mixed doubles field added. That competition runs Feb. 2-8, with men’s and women’s curling going Feb. 9-20. The U.S. has qualified teams in all three events, and the U.S. men are the reigning gold medalists from Pyeongchang. (Chris Plys, a member of both the mixed doubles and men’s squad, considers Michael Phelps his idol, with a giant poster of him over his desk; occupying the venue where Phelps won eight golds in 2008 is a special thrill for him, that gained Phelps’ attention this week.)
Get it!!!
The cube is a special place… enjoy it!
Let’s go team USA!! https://t.co/FFVuyW9ZJr— Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) January 30, 2022
Tracy was instrumental in Desmon’s path to the pool. He originally gravitated toward lacrosse and football, the latter under the tutelage of his dad, who played at University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Desmon stuck on the gridiron for his freshman and sophomore seasons but ended up back at the pool (His lone online highlight tape, as a joke between friends, is him getting crack-blocked on a kick return.)
The more pivotal influence on him was Tracy’s time at the Y, where she worked as a lifeguard and taught classes. There, Desmon’s attraction to the water flourished, swimming between Aquacizing seniors or splashing the day away.
“She would always bring me with her and kind of just throw me in the pool,” Desmon said. “And she was like, wow, he’ pretty good at swimming and pretty connected to the water.”
It’s no surprise that competition runs deep in the Sachtjen family. Desmon still feeds on that at Minnesota.
“That’s really the competitiveness and the drive that’s motivated me to want to swim in college,” he said. “I think I can speak for my sister, too, when I say that. And learning a lot of my values and stuff from my parents, I was able to model myself like, hey if I put my mind to this and model myself and work hard enough, maybe I can do something with this.”