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An Omaha memorial fund benefiting youth curling is getting a financial boost thanks to some groovy checkered pants worn by the Norwegian Olympic Curling Team.
It's a story that shows how close-knit the curling family really is.
First, those crazy pants.
The Norwegians, who took home the silver medal Saturday, chose to wear the loud golf pants when they were unable to find suitable red trousers.
The checkered slacks stand out in Olympic curling — every other team wears black pants.
The rest of the story is how the team's garb connects to a fund honoring Katie Beck, a 2001 Omaha Northwest graduate and Olympic curling hopeful who died of cancer in 2006 at age 24.
It starts with Tony D'Orazio, a 37-year-old curler from Rochester, N.Y., who was watching the Olympics and thought the Norwegians' colorful checkered pants were “jarring.”
“So I went on Facebook and searched for the group to become a fan of the pants, but there wasn't one,” he said. “So I created one.”
D'Orazio thought the Norwegian Olympic Curling Team's Pants Facebook page he created would attract a few friends who thought the pants were cool and funny.
By the time he was done setting up the page, he already had 10 fans. The site now has more than 526,000.
When the page reached 100,000 fans, D'Orazio was contacted by the chief executive officer of Loudmouth Golf, maker of the pants.
In exchange for D'Orazio putting a link to Loudmouth on his Facebook page, he was offered a portion of the proceeds from all pants sold. The pants retail for $90.
That's when D'Orazio decided to send the money to Omaha's Katie Beck Memorial Fund.
Beck was a member of a junior world championship team in curling. She enrolled at the University of Minnesota and continued to train.
She was then diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a bone cancer that afflicts children and young adults. She underwent surgeries and chemotherapy but died about a year after her diagnosis.
D'Orazio said he's pleased that what began as a lark will benefit youth curling.
“To be able to have something good come out of it really feels great,” he said.
Jenn Beck, Katie's mother, got a call last week about the possible donations while she was watching curling on TV.
“It would be awesome if this amounted to something,” she said.
Every time the family watches curling, it's hard not to think about Katie.
“Katie just really loved the sport,” she said. “She really went off with it.”
Contact the writer:
444-1336, leia.mendoza@owh.com
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