Fateful twist led Edmonds native Beighton to Winter Olympics

Sean Beighton had hung up his sliders.

It was the spring of 2019, and Beighton decided his long and illustrious curling career had run its course. He retired from competition, and he thought he was giving up the sport for good.

But destiny had other plans.

In a fateful twist, Beighton finds himself at the Winter Olympics three years after retirement. But rather than trying to fulfill a lifelong dream by winning an Olympic medal as an athlete, he’s attempting to do so as a coach.

The Edmonds native and Kamiak High School graduate is coaching two of the U.S.’s three curling teams at the Olympics, which begin this week in Beijing. He’s coaching Team Shuster (John Shuster, Chris Plys, Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner) in the men’s competition, and he’s also coaching Plys and Vicky Persinger in mixed doubles. As the coach of Team Shuster, he’s guiding three of the four members of the team that won the gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

“It’s crazy, I’m still kind of in shock,” Beighton said prior to leaving for Beijing last Thursday.

And it’s something Beighton never even considered before the opportunity presented itself.

Beighton, a 33-year-old software engineering manager who now resides in Seattle, comes from a family of curlers, as his parents are from Canada, so he took up the sport at a young age. Competing out of Seattle’s Granite Curling Club, he skipped his team to the men’s junior national championship in 2010, and he was the vice skip when Brady Clark’s team won the men’s national championship in 2013.

But come 2019, following five years as part of the USA Curling’s High Performance Program, Beighton was ready to be done.

“There were a couple things,” Beighton explained. “My dad passed away, and I kind of did some self-reflection on what I wanted to do with my career. Having a successful career didn’t align very well with being an Olympic curler. It takes so much sacrifice and dedication and time, those guys are grinding away practicing and hitting the gym to make sure they’re prepared. That’s just the level of world-class curling at this point, and unless you can put in the time like it’s a full-time job, there’s no way you can be a champion now.”

Beighton wasn’t prepared to devote that much of himself to the sport, so he signed off.

Well, signed off for two months.

Shortly after retiring, Beighton was contacted by Plys, who he became friends with while they were both part of the High Performance Program. Plys had replaced Tyler George as the vice skip of Team Shuster, and Team Shuster had lost its coach when Phill Drobnick left to become USA Curling’s director of coaching. Plys asked Beighton if he’d be interested in coaching the team.

“I’d never thought about coaching at all,” Beighton said. “I’d never coached before. I actually wanted to step away from curling in general, even from playing for fun, because when you do curling at a high level for so long the burnout is real.”

After taking a week to think about it, Beighton concluded that coaching was a happy medium. He’d still be able to pursue his dream of earning an Olympic medal, but would not be required to devote quite as much time to the pursuit as if he was an athlete.

So what does Beighton do as coach? The only time the coaches are seen during matches is when teams use their timeout and the coach come down from the stands to talk over strategy. But it turns out that’s the least of a curling coach’s duties.

“It’s your job to make sure the team is as prepared as possible to win the game.” Beighton explained. “That involves scouting other teams, paying attention to ice surface conditions, analyzing scoring trends. But mostly it’s about getting close and gaining the trust of the athletes so we can have conversations. Whether an athlete needs to vent about a teammate, or they’re looking for ideas on strategy, it all revolves around gaining trust and building a strong relationship with the athletes.”

Beighton may be the team’s coach, but Shuster is the skip and a five-time Olympian. So who’s ultimately in charge, the coach or the skip?

“I would say the skip for sure,” Beighton said. “On and off the ice they are the captain of the team. They drive a lot of the team-oriented decisions, and John has been so used to that, he’s been skipping since juniors in the early 2000s and most of his men’s career as well.”

Despite the coaching change, Team Shuster hasn’t missed a beat. Beighton coached the team to the gold medal at the 2020 U.S. Men’s Curling Championship in Cheney, as the team went undefeated through round-robin play and the playoffs. Team Shuster finished tied for fifth at the 2021 World Men’s Curling Championship in Calgary, Alberta, and then went on to win the U.S. Olympic team Trials in dramatic fashion in November in Omaha, Nebraska, coming from a match down to defeat Team Dropkin in the best-of-three final.

”They are definitely more professional than any team I’ve been a part of, for sure,” Beighton said. “They take the sport seriously, they practice more than any team I’ve played on, and that’s the reason they’re successful. They’re all great guys and it’s been natural to work with them. They’re very coachable, which makes it easier.”

Meanwhile, Beighton picked up coaching duties for Plys and Persinger in the spring of 2020. Plys and Persinger had been playing together for two years with limited success. But under Beighton’s tutelage the duo claimed its first national championship in 2021 in Wausau, Wisconsin; dominated the Olympic Trials in October in Eveleth, Minnesota, despite not being the favorite; then claimed a spot in the Olympics by winning a qualifying even in December in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

“I never won a mixed doubles title as an athlete, and (2021 in Wausau) was their first time winning as a pair, so it was really special for all of us,” Beighton said. “To see them progress and play so well at the trials, playing against teams that medaled at worlds, was awesome.”

Now it’s on to the Olympics. Opening ceremonies are on Friday, but mixed doubles curling actually starts Wednesday. And Beighton is optimistic about both his teams’ chances of medaling.

“In terms of how they’re playing, both have very legitimate medal shots,” Beighton said. “In mixed doubles, we were one of five teams at the trials we could have done very well at the Olympics. The men’s field is a little deeper, but there are five or six teams in the mix for medals and we’re one of them.”

All of which means Beighton has a good chance of earning that long-dreamed-about Olympic medal — three years after leaving his sport.