Local Athlete Makes National Wheelchair Curling Team

This week, USA Curling announced the eight athletes who will make up the 2026-27 USA Wheelchair Curling National Team. One of them hails from right here in Traverse City.

Meet Jeff Snover, a 59-year-old veteran and curling enthusiast who, thanks to a strong performance at a recent selection camp in Colorado, will soon live out his long-held dream of representing the red, white, and blue on the ice.

Snover has “always had an affinity” for curling, he says. “Growing up in the Flint area, we would get it over the antenna every once in a while, so I’d watch it on TV.”

It would be many years before Snover actually tried the sport. After graduating from high school in Flushing, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1986, spending most of his military career as a logistics warrant officer. Then, in 2003, everything changed.

“I deployed to Iraq in February of '03,” he tells The Ticker. “I returned in June of '03, and had a tree fall on me, causing a spinal cord injury. I was cutting trees with my dad on property that we owned in Tennessee. I was still active duty, but I was on leave. It was just a freak accident.”

The accident left Snover paralyzed from the belly button down. He was medically discharged the following year, and he and his wife retired to Augusta, Georgia. There, he began searching for his next chapter. He found it when the U.S. curling team hosted a wheelchair curling clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“I decided to attend, and I was hooked immediately,” Snover laughs. “Soon, I was commuting three hours a day, two or three days a week, from Augusta to Charlotte, just to throw rocks and play in leagues.”

In 2016, Snover attended a veterans curling camp in Denver and was flagged by Team USA as a top prospect. An invitation to 2017’s team trials followed, and while Snover says he “failed miserably,” the experience proved valuable: A year later, Team USA pulled him into its wheelchair curling development program.

It wasn’t a straight line from there to this week’s news. COVID-19 got in the way, and Snover’s pursuit of the national team eventually led to burnout that dimmed his enjoyment of the sport. But recreational play in recent years rekindled his passion, and he decided to give his Team USA dream one more shot.

Before applying for the selection camp, Snover reached out to Scott Strouse, president of the Traverse City Curling Club (TCCC). TCCC had become Snover’s home club since he and his wife relocated to northern Michigan, and he thought Strouse could help elevate his game.

“I needed help structuring a training program, both on the ice and off the ice. So, training strategy, reviewing games, the whole gamut. Scott agreed to help me,” Snover says.

All that training culminated two weeks ago, when Snover and Strouse traveled to Rock Creek Curling in Lafayette, Colorado for the three-day selection camp. Snover was one of 19 athletes competing for eight team slots, with trials testing everything from shot accuracy and rapport with teammates to performance under pressure.

“Sometimes, the judges would say, ‘Stop for a second. This shot right here? It's worth triple points, and we want you to imagine this being the deciding shot to win the world championship,’” Strouse says. “They want to see how you react when the pressure gets dialed up.”

Snover ultimately did make the team – something Strouse credits as much to his personality as his raw curling skills.

“I really think Jeff’s demeanor, leadership skills, and positive energy bumped him up in the standings, because those are his best attributes,” Strouse says. “I’m biased, of course, but I don’t think you can find a better human being, period, than Jeff Snover. And I bet if you interviewed 100 of our members [at TCCC], at least 50 would say the same thing.”

Now, it’s crunch time. Snover’s first major international competition is scheduled for late November in Finland, and the stakes are high. Team USA needs to perform well to earn a berth in the 2027 World Wheelchair Curling Championship.

Strouse and Snover have plenty on their minds. They need to get back on the ice, which is being reinstalled at TCCC this month after the summer offseason. They need to tweak Snover’s throwing technique at the direction of Team USA coaches. And they need to think about fundraising, since not all of Snover’s travel expenses in the coming months and years will be covered by the national team.

In the midst of it all, though, Snover may be thinking most about paying his success forward. He wants his story to inspire other people with disabilities to try curling, and points to TCCC’s Mighty Ducks Adaptive Curling league as a perfect place to start. The league will host an open house from 3-5pm on Friday, October 16, followed by regular Friday afternoon drop-in time from November through April.