Transcription of Julia Clukey for the show Love Maine Review 2014 #172
Lisa: Today, we have Olympian Julia Clukey who was a member of the US Luge Team. Julia competed in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. She is also a spokesperson for the Maine Beer and Wine Distributors Association. Each summer, she hosts Julia Clukey’s Camp for Girls on Maranacook Lake in Readfield, Maine.
Julia, thanks for coming in and bringing your presence into our studio.
Julia: Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
Lisa: You’re doing something that’s important to you and it came out of I think an earlier … an experience in your life that maybe didn’t have as much to do with the Olympics. As a spokesperson for the Maine Beer and Wine Distributors Association, it seems like it’s not something that every Olympian would choose.
Julia: Yeah, after the 2010 Olympics, the president of the Maine Beer and Wine Distributors Association approached me about their responsibility campaign that they were looking to grow in reaching young people and in trying to keep them away from their products and make them be responsible for themselves and make their decisions because that’s what we all want. We want kids to be healthy and safe, and it really was perfect timing.
I was just moving back to the state of Maine from living in Lake Placid New York for almost a decade and I was looking for way to reconnect with my community and give back in the way that I felt I had been given over the course of my career. That’s really where the partnership started and it’s just growing every year since then.
I’m very passionate about connecting with Maine youth and sharing my story athletically and personally with them so that they go home realizing that, one, you can do anything. It doesn’t matter where you come from. Two, that they own their own potential and they decide how hard they’re going to work, where they’re going to work with, whatever activity their passionate about, and then, also to stay healthy and to make decisions for themselves because if you make bad decisions, those are going to follow you down the road, so it’s important to be thinking about where you want to go and how you want to get there.
Lisa: Tell us about your story.
Julia: I got involved in this sport of luge very randomly. The US Luge Team came to Portland, Maine in 1997 and a friend and I write about it in the paper. In the very bottom part of the ad was that we get a free t-shirt if we came out for the day, so being 11-year old, that was all it took for us to go out for the day to try the sport of luge.
From them, I got invited to go to Lake Placid, New York and try the sport in the winter time, and that’s when I got hooked to the sport and made the US Development Team which is the lowest level.
I was on the team for many years and 12 years later, I made my first Olympic through lots of ups and downs in my career.
Lisa: For people who don’t watch the Olympics, which sport is the luge?
Julia: Luge is a sliding sport and it’s the one where the individuals are lying on their back going feet first. It’s the fastest of the three sports.
Lisa: That sounds a little crazy.
Julia: It’s a little bit. We do have quite a bit of control with our slides. We spend a lot of time with our equipment fine tuning them. When you first in this sport, you start really low down on the track and you work your way up until you’re comfortable with the higher speeds and the equipment.
I do have quite a bit of control and it certainly isn’t a sport for everyone, but I enjoy it very much.
Lisa: As a physician and a small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: Take care of yourself. How many times have you heard that simple sentence, but too often, we never take the time to do just that. When you take the time to care for yourself and commit to your long term expectations, something astonishing happens. Success becomes inevitable.
The same can be said for setting proper, long-range expectations for your business. If you plan properly and take care of your business and its systems, business success becomes a reality.
I’m Marci Booth. Let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of Love Main Radio is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike Le Page and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more are at rheritge.com.
Lisa: What was it like being part of a sport that didn’t have as much understanding as sports like hockey or in the winter time, or figure skating?
Julia: It certainly made it difficult starting out as far as fund raising, trying to cover my expenses, my equipment needs in ’98, ’99. This was before the internet was really very popular, and so, I spent a lot of time just explaining what the sport was.
Now, it’s a little different because everything is so accessible. It was tough at the beginning, but year after year, I kept doing it. I kept doing it. I kept improving in the sport and then, got more fans, more followers, and my community got behind me.
Lisa: Tell me about your family and their impact on what you’ve managed to accomplish.
Julia: My family has been a huge influence. First off, my parents for allowing me to do this sport of luge is a great sacrifice and by the time I was 13, I was travelling to Europe with the Junior World Cup team and I was gone six or seven months a year, and that’s a big sacrifice for a parent to let their kid go off into the world, so I owe a big, big thank you to them for selflessly allowing me to go after my dreams.
My sisters, they all … They’re both athletic growing up and I think there were certainly times when they didn’t understand why I was gone for so long and it got frustrating, coordinating all my travel and what not, but, they too have been very supportive of me and nothing’s better than me than having my family watching me compete.
Lake Placid, New York is the closest track, so every winter, they try to get out there and watch me do my thing.
Lisa: Where did you grow up and go to school?
Julia: I grew up in Augusta, Maine. I graduated from Cony High School in 2003.
Lisa: This must be one of the reasons why you’ve chosen to have a camp in Readfield?
Julia: Yeah, so I moved back to the US area in 2010, lived there ever since my off seasons and yeah, I wanted to give back to the community where … My childhood was so important to me. I feel like I had a great childhood. I was exposed to so much being growing up. I guess is a relatively small town, but there are so many great [inaudible 00:31:42] programs and art programs. My parents just did a great job of exposing us to a lot and I want to do the same to kids coming behind me to make sure I can give back and give them opportunities to try new things.
Lisa: You’ve also had some real tragedies in your life. Your father passed away when you were only 19 of a heart attack. That’s a very young age to lose your father.
Julia: Yeah, it was just after his 51st birthday and it was really tough to deal with especially mentally. He was kind of my person always. He was a big sports guy, so we had a similar mindset and it’s very easy to talk to him about my career, about problems I was facing on the track or what not. To lose him so suddenly, it took me awhile to adapt to that, a couple of years to really get over not having him to talk to everyday about what was going on especially as an athlete.
Lisa: And you also lost your sister, Olivia, in 2010.
Julia: Yeah, that was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever … Or it is the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. My sister passed away from mental illness about six weeks after I competed in the Vancouver Olympics.
I went from the highest moment of my life quickly to the saddest moment of my life and there’s not a day I don’t think of her and think of the struggles she faced and that’s another part of my summer camp, it’s giving back to young girls to ensure that they never feel poorly about themselves and if I can give them skills as they enter middle and high school so they’re finding activities that they’re passionate about and they’re comfortable in their skin and they have a positive self-message for themselves, then hopefully, that will carry with them through life.
Lisa: Tell me about some of the things that you do with the camper so that this type of message is put out there.
Julia: Half the day is spent with me doing different activities around setting goals, [inaudible 00:33:39] we talk about why we set goals for ourselves, how we set goals for ourselves, and then, understanding the difference between a big goal and then small daily goals that you can do for yourself whether it’s improving your school grades or a sport. It’s really the little goals you set that are going to carry you through to reaching that final goal.
Some of the other things we do is we look at magazines and advertisements in the way they’re targeting girls and the message that the media is sending out there and trying to understand that, one, you can’t avoid it. It’s going to be there.
Two, you don’t have to not read magazines, but make sure you’re making opinions for yourself and you’re not allowing this outside force to decide how you feel about yourself.
Then, a lot of the other activities we do is just understanding how important it is to love yourself and to be who you are and to be proud of that person.
We do arts and crafts projects and discussions again, and then, focus on positive body image, how to build a positive body image, how to take care of yourself mentally and physically.
Lisa: You also impacted 10,000 high school students as of May. You presented it more than 30 high schools across the state and part of this is your association with the Maine Beer and Wine Distributors Association and responsibility. What are some of your major themes?
Julia: My high school presentations, there’s really three things that I hit versus how important it is to try a lot of new things especially when you’re young because I got involved in this sport of luge so randomly like I said, and when you find things that you’re passionate about, it makes it so much easier to live a healthy life, I think, because you love what you’re doing and you want to pour all your energy into that.
Second is how important … How much hard work goes in the things that you can’t just rely on your talent or skill, that you have to be ready to work hard day in day out and it can take 12 years to reach a big goal like it did me to make the Olympics.
And lastly … Or actually, I guess four things. My most important thing is understanding that you own your own potential, yourself. You have to set goals for yourself. You have to set big goals fro yourself if you want to go far in sports in school, and that you get to decide your future in those things.
Lastly is you have to be ready for challenges and life is a roller coaster sometimes and you have to have plans in place so that when things do get a little rough or you find yourself facing a tragic situation, that you have a good support system and you have a good plan to allow yourself to heal whether it’s mentally, physically, or what not, and move forward from that positively.
Lisa: I have children who have gone through the school system and as athletes, I know that the athletic code is a big part of what keeps them from drinking. I would love to believe it’s because they’re just really great kids and they would never want a drink, but that code kind of keeps them on track, but there have to be bigger messages that we’re giving to our kids about that.
Julia: Yeah, and certainly, the Maine Beer and Wine Distributors Association, they’re eight family owned businesses in the state of Maine, so they’re very passionate about their communities. They all have kids and families and mostly, most school age, and so, they care very much about keeping kids safe and keeping them away from their product.
They understand that their product comes with a responsibility and they want to be out in front of that. With our partnership, the message that I’m giving to kids is bad decisions can follow you and you’re not invisible as well.
No one wants to read in the paper about a fatal accident or injury, or sickness from over drinking, so trying to get kids to realize that they’re not invisible, that it can happen to them, and we live in a great state, there’s so many things you can do to fill your time, just to focus on those and wait until you’re older and able to make those decisions for yourself.
Lisa: There is also a role modeling aspect to being an athlete and really it, at any level, I know that in our town in Yarmouth. If you’re a high school athlete who’s been going up through the system, you’ve been athlete, but you’ve also coached the younger kids, you’re recognizable on the playing fields.
To act responsibly in whatever area, whether it’s not drinking or whether it’s living a goal or [inaudible 00:38:12] that’s something that you’re not just putting out there for yourself. You’re putting that out there for people around you.
Julia: Yeah, certainly. I specially think so many high schools are the community if you … The high schools, everyone in the town reads about them and they want to read good things about their kids in the community.
I feel the same way and that’s another thing in my summer camp we talk about like it’s okay to stand out for good things. I think sometimes at middle school and high school level, kids don’t want that positive recognition. They feel uncomfortable with it and that’s kind of a sad thing when you think about it, that kids feel bad about getting good recognition because they’re worried about what their peers are going to think.
Lisa: This past season, you did very well on the world cup scene. You missed qualifying for the 2014 Olympics by 13,000ths of a second?
Julia: Yes.
Lisa: That must have been pretty devastating?
Julia: It was. It was very much so. I came in to the season one of the strongest athletes and early in the season, I had a couple small problems with the equipment, a couple of bad races, and then, finally got things back where they needed to be, but came out just a hair short literally in that quest for the Olympics, but really, I’m able to sit here today not looking back with a list of what ifs.
I really feel that I gave it everything I had to make it back to the Olympics and I came up short and that’s another important message, that sometimes, you’re going to set goals and you’re not going to make those goals on that day and it’s okay to reset, refocus, and make new goals for yourself and not allow yourself to be defined by that failure.
Lisa: You also had to work your way through an injury that could have been career ending really, that you had a knee injury.
Julia: Yeah, I tore my knee in 2009, just a couple of weeks before the season started, my meniscus and MCL, and fortunately, I was in my class in New York. We have a great medical staff there and we ran into surgery, and nine days later, I was competing again.
I wasn’t off my crutches yet, but I was very determined to not let anything get in my way of making that Olympic team. Everything I’d gone through to that point of my career had prepared me for that moment.
Lisa: You have a lot of grit.
Julia: I’m stubborn, but in a good way, I think.
Lisa: No, it’s a good thing. I say this in a … I’m very admiring of your grit because it’s not everybody that could have that significant knee injury go for and compete, deal with the loss of a father at a young age, deal with the loss of a sister at a young age, finishing 13,000ths of a second away from making it to the Olympics, and you’re still sitting in front of me and you seem like a genuinely happy individual in your life.
Julia: I am. I don’t have a lot to complain about really. Athletically, when I do come up short in races, 13000ths of a second short, honestly, my life experiences made have made that easier to handle with because that’s not the bigger picture of what matters to me and through losing my father and my sister. I learned those lessons the hard of way what really matters to me in the core of myself.
My sister had a son, Lucas, who’s my nephew. He’s five and we’re very fortunate to have a big involvement in his life. That’s really where most of my energy goes to is raisng him and being there for him and being a person in his life.
Luge is what I do, but it’s not who I am as a person. I think that’s what allows me to not shrug it off. Of course, I care very deeply. It hurt a lot to not make the Olympic team, but it doesn’t define me at the end of the day and I’m okay with that.
Lisa: Julia, how do people find out about your Julia Clukey’s Camp for Girls or the work that you’re doing as a spokesperson?
Julia: My website is clukeyluge.com. There’s a lot of information there about both the camp, my high school presentations. High schools can sign up there. It’s a very easy, one form, and then we look at dates, and figure out something that works.
As well, I’m on Facebook and Twitter, the social media avenues, so very accessible and I like it that way because I love when I visit a school.
Then, six months down the road, I get a Facebook message from a student telling me they decided to go to this college or they tried softball and they’re now in the softball team, and things like that. I try to make myself very accessible.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Olympian Julia Clukey who is a member of the US Luge Team and a competitor in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. I’m so impressed with your great … your determination and the foresight that you have and the work that you’re doing to connect with the kids in Maine, so thank you.
Julia: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.