Rick Baird (born January 14, 1974) was a member of the U.S. Bobsled team from 1998 to 2003. He began his career with the United States Bobsled and Skeleton Federation in 1998. He was a forerunner for the U.S. Bobsled team during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He also had the honor of running with the olympic torch for the 2002 Olympic Games.
The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002, was a winter multi-sport event that was celebrated from 8 to 24 February 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous municipality of the U.S. state of Utah. With an estimated population of 190,884 in 2014, the city is the core of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a population of 1,153,340. Salt Lake City is further situated within a larger metropolis known as the Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo Combined Statistical Area. This region is a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along an approximately 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front, comprising a population of 2,423,912 as of 2014. It is one of only two major urban areas in the Great Basin.
Rick played football at Dixie State College of Utah and Utah State University. He was also a standout track athlete for Utah State University being named All-Big West Conference in the hammer throw in 1998.
Utah State University is a public doctorate-granting university in Logan, Utah, United States. The coeducational, space-grant, land-grant, research university is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 18,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's largest public residential campus. As of Fall 2017, there were 27,679 students enrolled including 24,618 undergraduate students and 3,061 graduate students. The university has the highest percentage of out-of-state students of any public university in Utah totaling 23% of the student body.
The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed in 1969 as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) and in 1988 was renamed the Big West Conference. The conference stopped sponsoring college football after the 2000 season.
The hammer throw is one of the four throwing events in regular track and field competitions, along with the discus throw, shot put and javelin. The "hammer" used in this sport is not like any of the tools also called by that name. It consists of a metal ball attached by a steel wire to a grip. The size of the ball varies between men's and women's competitions.
Rick worked as the throwing coach for the UNLV Track and Field team from 2002-2005. He also worked as a NSCA certified personal trainer for 24 Hour Fitness.
A personal trainer is an individual certified to have a varying degree of knowledge of general fitness involved in exercise prescription and instruction. They motivate clients by setting goals and providing feedback and accountability to clients. Trainers also measure their client's strengths and weaknesses with fitness assessments. These fitness assessments may also be performed before and after an exercise program to measure their client's improvements in physical fitness. They may also educate their clients in many other aspects of wellness besides exercise, including general health and nutrition guidelines.
In the winter of 2009 Rick became the Head Track and Field coach at Faith Lutheran High School and guided his team to State Championship titles for both boys and girls teams in his first year as head coach. In his 2nd year as head coach he received the award as Sunset Conference girls Coach of the Year.
In the summer of 2009 Rick started his own personal training company; Peak Performance Fitness.
Glenroy John Gilbert is a Canadian former track and field athlete, winner of the gold medal in 4×100 metres relay at the 1996 Summer Olympics, and head coach of Athletics Canada.
Tianna Bartoletta is an American track and field athlete who specializes in the long jump and short sprinting events. She is a two-time Olympian with three gold medals. At the 2012 Summer Olympics she placed fourth in the 100m race then won her first gold by leading off the world record-setting 4 × 100 m relay team. At the 2016 Summer Olympics she won two more golds, first with a personal best to win the long jump then again leading off the victorious 4 × 100 m relay team.
Richard Raymond Majerus was an American college basketball coach. He coached at Marquette University (1983–1986), Ball State University (1987–1989), the University of Utah (1989–2004), and Saint Louis University (2007–2012). Majerus' most successful season came at Utah in the 1997–98 season, when the Utes finished as runners-up in the 1998 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament.
Armen Louis Gilliam was an American professional basketball player who played 13 years in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1987 to 2000. He also played one season (2005–06) for the Pittsburgh Xplosion of the American Basketball Association. Gilliam returned to the court after retirement as the head basketball coach for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Penn State Altoona Lions from 2002 to 2005.
Shauna L. Rohbock is a soldier in the U.S. Army National Guard, an Olympic medal-winning bobsledder, and former professional soccer player. After retiring from competitions she worked as a bobsled coach at the Utah Olympic Park.
Steven Paul Holcomb was an American bobsledder who competed from 1998 until his death in 2017. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, he won the four-man bobsled event for the United States, its first gold medal in that event since 1948. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he finished third in both the four-man and two-man event.
The UNLV Rebels football program is a college football team that represents the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The team is currently a member of the Mountain West Conference, which is a Division I Bowl Subdivision conference of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). The program which began on September 14, 1968, is coached by former Bishop Gorman High School head coach, Tony Sanchez. The team's home games are played at Sam Boyd Stadium in Whitney, Nevada.
The Jamaican national bobsleigh team represents Jamaica in international bobsledding competitions. The team first gained fame during their debut in the 1988 Winter Olympic Games four-man bobsled in Calgary, Alberta, where they were seen as underdogs as they represented a tropical nation in a winter sport. The team returned to the Winter Olympics in the two-man bobsled in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2014, and with a women's team for the first time in 2018. The team either failed to qualify or did not have a team during the other Winter Olympics.
The Utah Olympic Park is a winter sports park built for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and is located 28 miles (45 km) east of Salt Lake City near Park City, Utah, United States. During the 2002 games the park hosted the bobsleigh, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, and Nordic combined events. It still serves a training center for Olympic and development level athletes. Other facilities in addition to the ski jumps and bobsled track located on site include a 2002 Winter Olympics and Ski Museum, day lodge, summer aerial training splash pool, ziplines, and a mountain coaster.
Johnny Quinn is an American bobsledder and former gridiron football player. He is a member of the U.S. National Bobsled Team and competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics. Quinn is a former wide receiver for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He was signed by the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He was also a member of the NFL's Green Bay Packers in 2008. Quinn was a two-sport athlete at the University of North Texas, where he lettered in football and track and graduated with a degree in criminal justice. Quinn is the founder and president of The Athlete Watch, LLC, a web-based platform for student-athletes to market their skills to colleges and universities around the nation.
The UNLV Rebels are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The Rebels compete in the NCAA Division I as a member of the Mountain West Conference. The school's colors are scarlet and gray.
Dan Steele is an American bobsledder and track and field athlete who competed from the early 1990s to 2002. Competing in two Winter Olympics, he won the bronze medal in the four-man event at Salt Lake City in 2002. He is currently one of the most successful track and field coaches in America.
Lea Ann Parsley is a retired American skeleton racer from Granville, Ohio. She was the first female skeleton athlete to win a world cup medal for the United States and earned a silver medal in the women's skeleton event, a first in Olympic history, during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games. She was also one of eight athletes chosen to carry the World Trade Center flag into the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The Utah Olympic Park Track is a bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track located in the Utah Olympic Park, near Park City, Utah, United States. During the 2002 Winter Olympics, held nearby in Salt Lake City, the track hosted the bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events. Today the track still serves as a training center for Olympic and development level athletes, and hosts numerous local and international competitions.
James Jerome Carnes was an American track and field athlete, coach and administrator. A successful coach at the high school, college and international levels, Carnes compiled a 161–11 career dual meet record, highlighted by four college conference championships and six state high school championships. He was the head coach of the U.S. Olympic track & field team and the Florida Gators track and field team, the founder of the Florida Track Club, and a member of the U.S. Track & Field Hall of Fame.
Peter Shmock is a retired American track and field athlete, primarily known for throwing the shot put, and former Seattle Mariners coach. Currently Shmock is a personal trainer at ZUM, a Seattle health club he founded in 2002.
Aja L. Evans is an American Olympic medalists bobsledder (Two-woman) who competes as a brakeman. At her Chicago public high school she was an All-American track & field City Champion in sprints and shot put. As a college athlete she was an All-American and Big Ten Champion shot potter.
Nigel Williams-Goss is an American professional basketball player for Olympiacos of the Greek Basket League and the EuroLeague. He was selected by the Utah Jazz, with the 55th overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. He played college basketball for the Gonzaga Bulldogs. He spent two seasons with the University of Washington's Huskies, before deciding to transfer before the 2015–16 season. At a height of 1.92 m tall, his main position is point guard, but he can also play shooting guard.
Marsha Mark-Baird is a track and field athlete from Trinidad and Tobago, specializing in the heptathlon. She represented her nation Trinidad and Tobago in two editions of the Olympic Games, finishing twenty-second in Sydney and twenty-fifth in Athens with a current national record and her personal best score of 5962 points. Leading up to her Olympic career, Mark-Baird also picked up a silver medal in heptathlon at the 1998 Central American and Caribbean Games in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Randy Will is an American former bobsledder who competed in the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics.