"To hear stories about students who don't have water to drink or shoes to wear, we realize how fortunate we are in the United States," McCollor said.
Now retired from speed skating at age 27, Cheek has gone from Olympic athlete to humanitarian. It all began last winter in Turin, Italy, his last Olympics and one of his last competitions before his retirement from speed skating. He yearned to do something significant with his moment in the spotlight - to use it to make a statement. So he decided to give away his $40,000 bonus money as an Olympic medalist to Right to Play.
The nonprofit group was founded in 1994 by Norway speed-skating legend Johann Olav Koss to empower children in the neediest countries through sport and play. Cheek's announcement at a news conference became one of the most dramatic moments at the Winter Games and motivated one sportswriter to name Cheek as his pick for this year's Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.
"In a sporting era of victory dances, hyperbolic egos and exaggerated entitlements, Joey Cheek used the flicker of individual glory to share his greatest moment with others," wrote Brian Cazeneuve, a senior writer and Olympics expert for Sports Illustrated, in an essay for the magazine's website.
Cheek's gesture also started a domino effect, with corporate sponsors lining up to accept the skater's challenge to add to the donation. To date, more than $1 million has been raised for Right to Play programs and other charities.
For Cheek, his choice created a ripple effect in his own life. Since his retirement, he's become an athlete ambassador with Right to Play, and has traveled around the globe with presidents and dignitaries. "Unquestionably, this has become more memorable to the world at large than my skating," he said.
Hard to believe that Cheek - the North Carolina kid who seemed born to skate - would find himself better known for something else.
He grew up in Greensboro with a love for in-line skating. When he was 10, he and a neighbor kid who was on a club speed-skating team persuaded Cheek's mom to let him join. Soon he was racing nationally. Extremely driven, he would train for an hour every day after school on his own and then head to practice with the team for another two or three hours. On weekends, he'd skate twice a day. "I was nuts," he said.
In 1994 he watched speed-skating greats Dan Jansen and Olav Koss compete in the Winter Olympics and decided he wanted to ice skate. Thanks to his family's financial support, Cheek traveled to Minnesota to train on ice skates. At 16 he left home to pursue his skating career, training in Canada, Wisconsin, Montana and Utah. "Those were lean years in the beginning," he recalled. "My mom always joked that we didn't have furniture, but we had speed skates."
He had medaled at the 2002 Olympics, but he was on a roll in 2006. "I was skating out of my head," he said. He won the World Sprint Speed Skating Championship and then headed to Italy for the Winter Games as part of the U.S. men's speed-skating team. Weeks before he won gold and silver medals, he did something he normally avoids - thinking about winning. And about what he would do with his moment.
"I have to tell you how rare it is that I plan on winning things. As I was thinking about this, I was also thinking this could be bad juju," Cheek said. "I learned early on that every time I planned on winning it didn't happen that way."
With just a few weeks before his big races, he continued to mull it over. When the idea came to him that he could just give away his bonus and challenge others to also consider donating, he realized right away that it was the right statement to make, and there was no turning back.
He kept his plans quiet, telling only two people - a trainer and Koss, whom he sought out for advice on worthy causes. When Koss told him about a program in Chad for refugees of the Sudanese-Darfur conflict, Cheek knew immediately it was the cause he wanted to support.
"The magnitude of the crisis and suffering there is so much bigger than anywhere else, and the fact that there's so little coverage in the U.S." made him focus on Darfur.
"I'm on top of the world. I make good money. I have a family that's been nothing but supportive. And I have the benefit of coming from the most powerful nation in the history of the world," he said. That he's sitting here and people are suffering in Darfur "offends my sense of fairness," he said.
Giving back is his way of addressing that imbalance, and it's the message he delivers when he addresses crowds. He approaches his humanitarian work with the same intensity he had for skating. Already he's been tapped to serve on former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative and he has visited Zambia to see a Right to Play program in action. He plans to study economics next fall at Princeton University in New Jersey. Tonight, he'll accept the first Heisman Humanitarian Award in New York.
Back at Washington Technology Magnet Middle School, Cheek showed off his gold medal and later signed autographs for the kids.
"It's my sincere hope that you all reach your goals," he told them. "When you're done, I want you to think about all the other people in the world. The most important thing you can do with your success is using it to help other people out."
Allie Shah - 612-673-7530
OLYMPIC AMBASSADORS
Alana Blahoski, left, a St. Paul native and Olympic gold medalist in ice hockey, joins the list of high-profile athletes serving as ambassadors for Right to Play. Based in Toronto, the humanitarian organization uses sports to help disadvantaged kids in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Blahoski returned to St. Paul last week with fellow ambassador and Olympian Joey Cheek. For more information, see .
