Do you ever wonder how Olympic dreams are born? 

Sometimes, they are born out of fancy training centers, pricey coaches, and high tech equipment.  Sometimes, they are born in backyards, by kids dressed in hand-me-down snow clothes. Kids who just happened to grow-up next door to the guy who’s going to carry the American flag in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

You may not have heard of Mark Grimmette but, in our neck of the woods, he is a bright shining star.  Grimmette, 39, will be competing in his fifth Olympics and, having won bronze and silver Olympic medals, he is the most decorated athlete in USA Luge history. 

He just happens to have begun his luge career at the place we spend almost every free hour during our long Michigan winters: The Muskegon Winter Sports Complex, a non-profit center located in a nearby state park.

One of only four public luge tracks in the country, the Sports Complex is about as down home as you can get.  Local kids gather there to socialize while they play pick-up hockey.  Adults putter through the woods on cross country skis, trying to brace themselves from the stiff wind blowing off of Lake Michigan, just across the road.  And, on Thursday nights, kids from around the area pull on as many layers as possible and head out to the luge track, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the guy that the biggest hill on the track is named for. After hours spent speeding down the ice, they warm up inside, buying Krispy Kreme donuts to help support the luge coach’s efforts to train in Latvia. 

When Mark is in town, he visits the track and gives the kids pointers. It’s like they’d spent the day with a rock star. They listen over and over to the local lore - that the only reason Mark started sliding is because a track just happened to be built across the street from his house over 25 years ago.  

Here is an excerpt from a Detroit Free Press Story on Grimmette’s selection as flag bearer:

Jim Rudicil, executive director of the Muskegon sports complex, said his phone has been ringing off hook since early this morning, when Grimmette appeared on NBC’s Today Show.

Rudicil knows Grimmette, 39, better than most. They were neighbors and best friends who lived across the street from the Muskegon State Park. Rudicil was with Grimmette the day they were hiking in the woods and saw bulldozers pushing dirt around their sledding hill.

“I remember we were mad at first,” said Rudicil, 38. “But then we started helping out.”

The boys -- there were four of them -- volunteered for the monthslong effort. They carried lumber up the hill and, later that fall, pounded nails to help build a section of the track.

“Whenever I have a chance to go back, I look at the areas where I had a chance to help build,” Grimmette, who lives in Lake Placid, N.Y., told the Free Press in an interview last week. “We had a great group of people there. At that time, it just wasn’t being part of a team, but being part of a track crew. It took two or three months to build.”

Tomorrow night, I can’t wait to sit with all of our Sports Complex family as we watch Mark carry the American flag into the opening ceremonies.  I feel like he’s the perfect choice.  Not the skater who’s parents began reserving her hours of expensive ice time the day she was born.  Or the hard partying downhill skier who doesn’t really care.  Mark represents the average guy, the you and me that could have been if we had just lived across the street from the curling center or the biathlon range as kids.

Want to get a feel for what it’s like to ride the luge track?  Here’s Mark’s buddy, Jim Rudicil, in an ad for the Winter Sports Complex.