Formally, Rich Ruohonen is a member of the U.S. men’s Olympic curling team in Milan-Cortina. Unofficially, he could be the most essential 54-year-old personal injury attorney in the Olympic Village. He would also be the oldest American ever to compete in the Winter Olympics.
His self-made T-shirt conveys to other athletes, ‘I’m not the dad and I’m not the coach.’ He is there to compete. According to Team USA’s youngest Olympians, that “guy” is the one making omelets before high-pressure games, grilling steaks after big victories, and quietly covering part of the expenses to keep their unlikely journey on course.
Ruohonen, a two-time U.S. champion and a longstanding figure in American curling, has finally arrived at the Games after over four decades in a sport he first took up on Saturday mornings in fifth grade at the St. Paul Curling Club in his home state of Minnesota.
The path here was circuitous. In 2022, after his sixth unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the Olympics, Ruohonen withdrew from elite men’s curling, retiring twice in four years and redirecting his focus to senior events and his successful law practice in Minnesota. However, his Team USA profile notes that since he started curling in 1981, he has only missed one curling season—while studying law at Hamline Law School in Minnesota and recovering from a severe knee injury.
On the surface, Ruohonen’s role is restricted: As an alternate, he might never actually throw a stone on Olympic ice. In actuality, The Journal reports he has a fatherly presence on the team. He drives the rented minivan, does early-morning grocery runs so his teammates can sleep, cooks eggs to order on game days, and uses his successful lawyer’s earnings to help cover travel and lodging that Olympic stipends don’t fully cover. (There’s the matter of a $200,000 gift, which vests either at age 45 or 20 years after their appearance, suggesting Ruohonen will receive his in his mid-70s.)
As a partner at TSR Injury Law, Ruohonen has been known as a tenacious plaintiff’s attorney, and has earned multiple “Attorney of the Year” accolades in his state.
Colleagues characterize him as a litigator who seldom loses in trial and tackles each case with the same thorough preparation he applies to reading the ice. Ruohonen started curling more than a decade before some of his teammates were born and has medals from consecutive senior world championships—yet he still attends 6 a.m. workouts and acknowledges his main job might be to stand on the sidelines with a stopwatch and a joke.
Before he left for Italy, The Journal reported that Ruohonen set up an automatic email response for clients and lawyers. “I am out of the office,” he wrote, “playing in the Olympics.”