Norwalk, Connecticut — The solution to one of the most persistent problems in education today may lie in the work occurring in a small breakroom deep inside Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy. In the room, five school officials sit around a little table, laptops open, running swiftly through a long list of middle school students who have major attendance problems. 

“Out with the flu for a week.”

“He’s moving to Texas.” 

“When we said we would show up at her house, she started coming.”

Olympians – athletes at the top of their sport and in prime health – are idolized and often viewed as superhuman. These athletes spend their lives focusing on building physical strength through rigorous training and diets that are honed to provide the nutrients necessary to excel at their sport.

However, athletes are at considerable risk for eating disorders and having an unhealthy relationship with food and their bodies.

Shelby native Curt Tomasevicz fulfilled his dream of playing football for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, where he was a scrappy special teamer. But since then, his life and career have taken a circuitous route — a twisting, turning path kind of like a bobsled course.

Tomasevicz, who grew up in a 700-person town hundreds of miles from the nearest mountain, is now on the USA Bobsledding leadership team as director of sport performance. And he’s currently at the Winter Olympics in Italy.