Paralympian Steve Emt is aiming for the first-ever U.S. medal in wheelchair curling at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games.
Emt, a former basketball player, was paralyzed in a drunk driving accident and now works as a motivational speaker.
After a last-place finish in 2018, Emt dedicated himself to intense training and has led Team USA to a semifinal appearance.
Emt and his teammate are competing in the new mixed doubles event, with Team USA guaranteed its best finish since 2010.
MILAN — Eight years ago in Pyeongchang, Steve Emt left the ice with his head hung low. A member of the U.S. Olympic wheelchair curling team, his squad just finished in 12th place. Dead last.
Emt spent two days sulking before the Hebron, Connecticut, native channeled his feelings into something else — fuel. Training more, pushing his teammates harder, and striving to be a better teammate himself, Emt claimed his role as a leader on the team.
Four years later, Team USA finished fifth at the Beijing Games, one spot outside the playoffs. Now Emt is at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milano Cortina, where he hopes to bring home the Americans’ first Paralympic medal in the sport.
“We will be successful,” Emt said. “And we will be on that podium.”
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Emt is already one step closer to his ultimate goal. It took consecutive wins that were not for the faint of heart — a game against Italy on March 8 that came down to the final stone, and a come-from-behind victory over undefeated China on March 9 — to advance the Emt and teammate Laura Dwyer past round-robin play for only the second time in program history.
The semifinal appearance is a product of Emt’s work back in the U.S.
On the ice six days a week, Emt trained. He ran dry firing exercises in his living room, consulted with a sports psychologist, and used NeuroTracker technology designed to improve performance in complex, fast-paced environments to enhance his decision-making.
A medal for Emt would come at a time of unprecedented support for the Paralympic movement in the United States, including in the form of financial investment from the USOPC and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to support athletes on travel expenses and post-competition financial awards.
It is the type of support critical for elevating Team USA Paralympics.
“The teams above us, they are all professional athletes, their governments fund them fully,” Emt said of countries like Korea and China, who dominate his sport. “I’m a public speaker on our team, we’ve got an accountant, we’ve got two lawyers, I mean, the women’s team, they’ve got a dental assistant.”
Emt, a motivational speaker and former high school basketball coach for two decades, was involved in a car accident as a result of his drinking and driving that left him paralyzed at 25 years old.
“For about six months after my crash, I did not accept what I had done. I was lying to myself. I was lying to everyone around me. I didn’t want kids to look at me in my hometown,” said Emt, a former walk-on player for the UConn Huskies men’s basketball team. “I told everybody a deer ran out in front of me.”
Six months after his crash, a newspaper reporter approached Emt to write a story on his journey, but recognized that something was missing in the details.
“I think he knew I was lying, and up until that point, I hadn’t accepted,” Emt said. “When we mess up in life, you’ve got to forgive yourself, right?”
For 29 years, Emt has traveled across the country almost weekly to speak at schools, reaching out to students as a motivational speaker, leading discussions on social-emotional learning, and providing alcohol awareness education.
“That’s my label, yeah, I’m a curler, yeah, I’m a speaker, yeah, I’m a drunk driver, I’m in a wheelchair because I’m a drunk driver, and I want everyone to know it,” Emt said. “And I want you to learn from me.”
It was Emt who was the student when he first encountered curling, however. The former Husky said he was “stalked” into the sport in 2013, when a man approached him late one night while he was by himself in Cape Cod.
“I saw you pushing up the hill back there, and with your build, I can make you into a Paralympian in a year,” Emt recalled the man telling him.
The stranger turned out to be Tony Colacchio, a renowned recruiter and coach for the National Wheelchair Curling Team. The teamwork, competition and skill gave Emt a competitive rush he had not felt since playing for the Huskies. He was hooked instantly.
Three months later, Emt received an offer to join the national team for USA Curling, setting record numbers for a rookie along the way.
Emt now calls DeForest, Wisconsin, his home and holds the title of the oldest athlete on Team USA this Paralympics at 56. He is leading the surge in curling, hosting Learn to Curl events nationwide. He is competing in Cortina in mixed doubles with Dwyer of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, in a brand-new event to Paralympic competition.
Emt hasn’t forgotten what it was like to feel low. The last-place finish in PyeongChang. The lies he told himself after his crash. But now he is ready to continue his own turnaround and finish on the ice what he has already accomplished in his personal life.
With this semifinal appearance, USA Curling can finish no worse than fourth place, which would tie its best finish in history at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
For the former seventh-grade math teacher, it’s not just about the results at Cortina. It’s about what the sport has brought into his life and how he can give back to a community that supported him from the very beginning.
“Curling has changed my life, it hasn’t saved it, but it’s definitely changed it,” said Emt. “Curling has taught me in life, has taught me in relationships, has taught me in my job to appreciate all the little things. When I get up on a stage in front of 600 17-year-olds, I go through the same thing every time, I go through the process, and I love it. That’s what it’s about.”
The United States will enter the knockout stage as a two-seed with revenge on its mind. The doubles pair suffered its worst loss of round-robin play to Korea, 10-1 on March 7. Now, on Wednesday, USA Wheelchair Curling will compete for a chance at Paralympic gold at 9:35 a.m. ET.
Alex Carpenter is a reporter for the Paralympics Project, a partnership between USA Today Network and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.