‘Brand New Chad’ ready for final spin

Published 10:01 am Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Before the 2006 Winter Olympics, swaggering speed skater Chad Hedrick was better-known as “the loudmouthed Texan,” a nickname he embraced and embodied by forecasting five medals for himself.

He was less enthusiastic about being dubbed the Paris Hilton of his sport, thanks to his reputation for a fondness for the nightlife.

While his petty bickering with brooding U.S. teammate Shani Davis did little to dispel those images, Hedrick emerged from the Games with a new sense of identity after becoming only the third U.S Winter Olympian to win three or more medals in one Olympics.

No longer would he have trouble explaining just what it was he had been dedicating himself to in one form or another from the time he was 17 months old and put on roller skates for the first time at his parents’ rink in Spring, Texas.

“Especially in Texas — we barely know anything about hockey,” he said, adding at last fall’s U.S. Olympic media summit that some have mistaken him for a figure skater.

Now, though, he stood for something people could understand and admire even if they couldn’t relate to it. “When people (didn’t) understand,” he said, “it (was) sort of like an empty feeling.”

As it happened, though, that emptiness didn’t entirely fade. Even as Hedrick took months off to bask in the glory, something was shifting inside of him. Though he never went as far as to say he didn’t like what he saw in the mirror, Hedrick ultimately is declaring that as he enters the Vancouver Olympics projecting an entirely different persona.

Between getting married, becoming a father and hugging Christianity tight, Hedrick, 32, seems preoccupied by having it known he’s a “Brand New Chad” — as his Web site proclaims him.

If the campaign is accurate, he has gone from a tendency toward childishness to an endorsement with Pampers, which he proudly notes includes free diapers for life. He’s transformed from wearing cockiness on his sleeve to tattoos on his arm that read “Faith” and “6/7/8,” a reference to his wedding date to Lynsey Adams.

In interviews, on his web page, Facebook site and through Twitter, Hedrick seeks opportunities to refer to bringing glory to God through speed skating.

Perhaps most profoundly, though, he has taken a different tack with Davis, whom he accused of being unpatriotic in Italy after Davis’ refusal to compete in the team pursuit — where Hedrick had hoped to win a medal.

His assessment oversimplified the complicated, hyper-sensitive Davis, who preferred to focus on individual races and won two medals in the process. Davis long has navigated a unique course, even now training in The Netherlands and distancing himself from his U.S. team by taking such measures as squelching his biography from appearing in the U.S. Speedskating media guide.

The spat between Hedrick and Davis devolved into a farce that almost eclipsed the fact they won five medals between them. Neither came off with grace or dignity.

But here was Hedrick in December, reaching for Davis’ arm and hoisting it in victory after Davis won a World Cup event in Salt Lake City. “You guys are going to see it’s a different Chad now,” he told reporters afterward.

When the topic of Davis was broached last fall, Hedrick said, “You know, Shani and I always drive each other to be better. That’s how it’s always been. But we can look at it another way, and if neither of us were any good there wouldn’t be any attention at all.”

For a time, it seemed unlikely Hedrick, 32, would even try to get himself a medal again. But Lynsey’s encouragement made an impact, perhaps especially since she had been there with him as he apparently was beginning to mature behind the scenes in Torino in 2006.

Hedrick also couldn’t get over the exhilaration of Torino, which began with the opening ceremonies that he had been urged to skip since his first competition was the next day.

“I really owe my gold medal (in the 5,000-meter) to the energy that the opening ceremonies gave me,” said Hedrick. “This is what fires us up. I’m not fired up to skate a World Cup. Nobody’s watching us skate a World Cup.”

Everybody will be watching Saturday, when he tries to win another gold medal in the 5,000. Hedrick was sixth in the event in a World Cup competition in December.

Hedrick is counting on his most fundamental competitive traits to carry him through — particularly the toughness he has been known for since flying face-first through the windshield of his family’s car as a 5-year-old after a collision with a drunk driver.

“Other skaters may skate with very good technique and not look like they’re trying as much,” he said, adding, “But I’ve always been the guy who can fight through pain the most.”

Whatever happens in Vancouver, “Brand New Chad” says he will retire after the Olympics and dedicate himself to his wife and infant daughter, Hadley, and finding a career in the “real world.”

“You guys will not even see me on the ice (again),” he said. “I promise you. This isn’t Brett Favre here.”

And maybe not just a loudmouthed Texan anymore, either.