Jim Calhoun had recorded the Paralympic mixed doubles curling competition on Monday morning and was planning on watching it later.
But when he heard the news that one of his former players, Steve Emt of Hebron, was headed to the semifinals after a 7-6 must-win victory over previously unbeaten China, he was thrilled.
“He paid a difficult price, but here he is,” Calhoun said Monday. “He has a chance to play for being the best and that’s great.”
Emt, a walk-on men’s basketball player at UConn from 1992-94, and his mixed doubles partner Laura Dwyer, will play South Korea in the mixed doubles semifinals Tuesday at 9:35 a.m. (Peacock, USA will join the game in progress at 10:30 a.m.).
If the US team wins, the pair will go to the gold medal game Wednesday. If they lose, they will play for the bronze medal Wednesday. If they win, it would clinch the first medal in curling for the USA at the Paralympics. The highest the US has ever finished in the Paralympics in curling was fourth place in 2010.
This three-time Paralympic curler is a former UConn men’s basketball walk-on. He will compete this week in Italy
“We are on an incredible run right now,” Emt said in a message from Italy Monday. “But there is more work to be done. We both app http://gty.im/2265421935 reciate all the love and support we are getting from all around the country from both old curling fans and new ones. We are going to go out (Tuesday) and do exactly what we did today and fall back on our training and everything else we did to get us here.”
Calhoun still occasionally talks to Emt, who took up wheelchair curling in 2013.
“He loved to compete and now he found another avenue,” Calhoun said. “He’s a good example for a lot of people. It’s not over; it’s just a different venue.”
Emt was a three-sport athlete at RHAM High School – an All-American soccer goalie, the all-time leading scorer in basketball and an all-conference baseball player. He went to play at West Point but left school after his father died of a heart attack when he was 57.
Emt, at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, walked on at UConn. He played only two minutes in two years but he made an impression on everyone on the team and became friends with players like Kevin Ollie, Donyell Marshall and Donny Marshall, with whom he is still friends to this day.
“I took him because he’s a tough son of a (expletive),” Calhoun said. “He gave all the guys a tough time. Plus the kid – Steve had a rough personality but was incredibly well-liked by his teammates. Really well-liked. Even more so, I think, afterward (his accident). They respect him.
“He couldn’t do what some of them could do. But what he’d do was give them a good shot to the ribs, just saying, ‘I’m here, by the way.’”
In March 1995, Emt went to a bar with some friends to watch the UConn-Maryland NCAA Tournament game. He was recognized as a former UConn player; drinks were on the house. “One drink led to another, it got out of hand pretty quick,” he said in 2021. “That’s basically the last thing I remember.”
He passed out while driving his truck about 85 mph on I-84 and crashed. The truck flipped over multiple times. Emt wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was thrown clear of the truck. He broke most of his ribs, his back in three places, had a head injury and massive internal bleeding. The crash severed his spinal cord. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
“When I got the news about his accident, I felt terrible because I knew – he was alive, so I was happy about that – but now he’s going to have to suffer because he truly loved being an athlete,” Calhoun said. “And here he is again, in some ways getting a second life because he worked for it. I wished to God it never had happened. But it did. It’s what you do with what happened.”
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Emt went on to become a math teacher and a basketball coach in Hebron as well as a motivational speaker, talking to students and others about drunk driving. He eventually left teaching and coaching to focus on curling full time.
Emt, 56, is the oldest U.S. Paralympian. In 2018, his team finished 12th out of 12. In 2022, the US team finished fifth. He moved to Wisconsin 2 ½ years ago and is able to practice often with Dwyer, who is from Wisconsin, in mixed doubles, which is being offered for the first time at the Paralympics.
Now he has a chance at a Paralympic medal.
“The Ray Allen jump shots and the Kemba Walker flying to the basket were all wonderful but Steve’s fight – the thing about him, I said to him one time, I understand, you carry your mistake around with you and you do so with honor because you’re not that same person,” Calhoun said. “I’m very, very proud of him.
“Steve went through a lot. We make mistakes and we use erasers. There were no erasers. Something that he treasured, which was athletics, he was a tough, tough kid on the court – it was taken away from him. We all make mistakes, but we don’t pay that kind of price.
“But it didn’t defeat him. That’s the great thing about him.”
