Sports

Friday, June 27th segment:

Former Juneau resident Jeremy Gleason says he didn’t necessarily accept a teaching position in Venezuela because the 2014 FIFA World Cup was in neighboring Brazil, but he admits that the possibility of watching the championship soccer tournament did cross his mind.

Since he was already living and working in South America, Gleason said it was easier to turn his dream of attending the event into reality.

“I’m used to watching it with friends at the Silverbow (Bakery),” Gleason said. “So, coming from a place like Juneau, something like this seems so unattainable and so distant.”

The former Juneau-Douglas High School soccer player, Juneau Soccer Club coach, and assistant high school coach is attending as many matches as he can. He’s sharing his experiences by texting and sending pictures to Juneau soccer players and friends.

“Traveling from venue to venue isn’t like hopping in a car and taking a short road trip,” Gleason said. Matches are being held in twelve venues around the country in cities like Recife, Salvador, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro.

“Most of the time you’re on a plane and the airport environment is very lively with just all kinds of fans going from this place and that place,” Gleason said.

That’s the big reason, he says, why it’s all been a positive, life changing experience for him.

I’m not going to miss another World Cup. I was a huge soccer fan before, but I’m even more so obsessed with the sport, and just the culture behind it. You get to meet all these people from all over the world and they are a huge part of what makes this experience special. It changes from a sport to just a world gathering, and it just happens that soccer brings everyone together.”

Gleason said he’s met up with a few Juneau friends and there’s no shortage of Americans in the stands whenever the United States plays.

And what did Gleason think of Thursday’s match when Germany won over United States 1-0? He said the U.S. team did a good job of counterattacking when they had an opportunity to possess the ball, and they comfortably passed and moved it around.

The thing that I could sense and could see more than anything is that we’re a confident team even if we’re playing a world power like Germany. We weren’t afraid of their skills and their strength. I think it takes a very disciplined team to absorb a lot of pressure and then, finally, when you get the ball, not to panic and then give it right back.”

Gleason earlier planned to spend a few weeks watching the World Cup group stage before flying off for a two week visit in Juneau. But he said that he changed his mind after arriving in Brazil.

Tuesday, July 1st segment:

Just by chance, Gleason said he had already purchased tickets for Tuesday’s game in Salvador featuring the United States and Belgium. That was before the United States lost to Germany 1-0 and before it was determined which teams would be playing in Tuesday’s Round of 16 knockout match.

“They’re not checking names on tickets,” Gleason said. “They scan the bar code, but — logistically — I think it’s unrealistic for the workers at the stadium to check for ID.”

Gleason said he purchased two tickets legitimately through a World Cup website. Other tickets he received or purchased from friends and others who had extras.

Tickets are being sold at the various stadiums, but Gleason said some can fetch as much as $1500 each.

“If it’s not the final (match), I’m not considering anything close to that,” Gleason said.

Gleason made plans for the World Cup only in February. He’s been able to defray costs in various cities by staying with Juneau friends or a former student’s family.

Even if you cannot get a ticket, there are plenty of other opportunities to watch the games and tap into the World Cup atmosphere.

“If you can’t go to the stadium, just being in a café, being in a bar, in a restaurant, games are on (television) everywhere,” Gleason said. He remembers as many as 100,000 people at the Rio de Janeiro Copacabana fanzone during the U.S.-Portugal game.

Everything has been spectacular and the Brazilian people have been extremely hospitable and generous.”

Gleason said he’s just a soccer fan at heart while watching the World Cup. Like other fans, home country team preference or national pride may take a back seat to passion for the game.

“I have eight different country jerseys,” Gleason said. For example, he’ll put on his France or Brazil jersey depending on which team is playing that day. “Everyone accepts you as part of their country until you open your mouth and they realize that you not French or not Brazilian,” Gleason said.

Although, he discovered that others are often intrigued about coming from Alaska and that usually negates any confusion from others about his sartorial choices.

I can be a fan of everyone.”

Gleason said it’s like a huge country wide party whenever the Brazilian team plays a game.

“As long as the Brazilian team is advancing,” Gleason said, “the energy in this country is going to grow and grow.”

After more than 3,000 miles on a bicycle in less than two weeks, Juneau’s Janice Sheufelt is back in the capital city with her second consecutive Race Across America title in hand.

Sheufelt won the premier ultra-marathon cycling event last year as part of a two-person mixed-gender team. This year she won the solo female division, finishing June 22 with a time of 11 days, 18 hours and 2 minutes. That’s despite a mid-race setback due to breathing problems.

There isn’t a harder or longer race, so I’m really glad to have won this one,” Sheufelt says.

After jumping out to an early lead in the non-stop bike race from Oceanside, Calif. to Annapolis, Md., Sheufelt started having difficulty breathing in the Rocky Mountains.

“I was coughing and wheezing and the smallest little uphill I could barely get up it, because I couldn’t get any breath,” she says. “The crew said I sounded like a 90-year-old smoker. I just sounded terrible.”

Sheufelt says she’s never had asthma or other breathing issues. She tried using an inhaler, but that didn’t work. So after reaching the time station in South Fork, Colo., Sheufelt and her crew made their way to a local hospital.

Sheufelt is a family physician and was worried she might have fluid building up in her lungs due to the high altitude. Fortunately, a chest X-ray revealed otherwise.

“Because if I had had that, my race would have been over,” she says. “You can’t keep going with that.”

The emergency room doctor told her the breathing problems probably resulted from a combination of the dry desert air in the early stages of the race and too much exercise without giving her body time to recover. The doctor prescribed breathing treatments with a nebulizer and lots of rest.

“I told the doctor I wanted to get back on my bike within a few hours,” Sheufelt says. “And he’s like, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be back on your bike, period. But, you know, if you’re going to do the race, you need to at least give your body like 12 hours.'”

While she was off the bike, Sheufelt fell into third place. She says it was demoralizing and to make matters worse, she still felt terrible when she returned to the race.

At one point in eastern Colorado, you know, I just thought there’s no way I was even going to finish,” she says.

Sheufelt slowly began to regain form, moving into second place in Kansas. She and Canadian cyclist Joan Deitchman were neck-and-neck through most of Missouri, before Sheufelt re-took the lead for good.

She says a lot of back and forth is unusual in the Race Across America, where stronger cyclists tend to build leads and keep them.

“I was like, I really don’t want to be racing in Missouri,” she says with a laugh. “I just want to ride my bike my own pace.”

Sheufelt says doing RAAM with a teammate last year contributed to the success of her solo race. About half of her 11-member crew this year did the race with her last year as well. Her husband, Jim, served as crew chief. He says even when Janice was feeling down, the crew tried to remain upbeat.

“She thought she was doing horrible. We didn’t feel that way at all,” Jim Sheufelt says. “We were amazed she was riding so well.”

Their daughter Megan was responsible for keeping track of the 8,000 calories a day that Janice ate during the race. Jim says the crew also featured Janice’s brother, Ted, a massage therapist, as well as some of her co-workers from the Ethel Lund Medical Center in Juneau.

“It’s definitely a team effort, because if the riders aren’t getting enough to eat and really being taken care of by the crew, they’re just not going to win,” Jim says. “So it was really nice to get the win from the crew perspective.”

Now that she’s won RAAM two years in row is Sheufelt planning to go for a three-peat?

I really don’t want to do Race Across America again,” she says. “Just because it’s so hard. The training itself is incredibly hard. So I’m just looking forward to riding my bike for fun.”

Her husband says she’ll find another way to challenge herself.

During this time of year, they both can be found at Juneau’s Silverbow Bakery at 8 o’clock in the morning. For the FIFA World Cup, the bagel eatery turns into a community gathering space. Sometimes, only a handful of people are watching. Other times, like Thursday morning, more than a hundred people can be found glued to the game.

It’s half-time during the USA-Germany World Cup match. In Brazil, it’s about two in the afternoon. In Juneau, it’s 9 a.m. Most of the more than 100 spectators in the backroom of the Silverbow should be at work.

“You know, I should be, but I’ve forgiven myself these two hours and I’ll just stay late tonight,” says Juneau’s deputy city manager Rob Steedle.

He’s watching the soccer game with his daughter and son.

“My kids grew up playing soccer since they were five or so and I played, myself, in high school very, very badly,” Steedle says.

Silverbow is packed. Every seat is taken and many people are standing up, lining the walls. That doesn’t stop more people from filing in and finding a few inches of free space to watch the big screen.

Steedle says World Cup exemplifies Juneau’s close knit community.

“A lot of these people, I believe, could be watching at home, but they come here to be together,” he says.

Adults aren’t the only ones playing hooky.

“We got to skip swim practice and watch the game because it’s so important,” says 15-year-old Aidan Seid.

Aidan is part of Glacier Swim Club and practices three hours a day, six days a week. Even if he hadn’t skipped practice, Aidan made sure he wouldn’t miss the big match.

“I had the game recorded at home and I was planning on watching after, but this is much better, watching it live. It’s good to see a lot of people from Juneau in the same room all rooting for the same team,” Aidan says.

Marla Berg got to Silverbow around 7:30 for the 8 a.m. start time. She scored a table but says most had already filled up by then. She’s fiddling with her phone.

“I have a good friend who’s down in Brazil. I just texted her and she said she wasn’t at the game today. She was out in the Amazon eating fried piranha, watching the game on TV,” Berg says.

Watching World Cup at the Silverbow Bakery started eight years ago when some Juneau residents approached owner Jill Ramiel about showing the matches on a big screen ordinarily used for artsy movies. In 2006, World Cup was in Germany and games started at 6 a.m.

“And none of the bars were open, and they knew that we had this big screen and they asked us and I honestly thought maybe four people would show up and then there was like a hundred people there,” Ramiel says.

Back then, Ramiel and her husband lived in the space right above the backroom where the games were showing.

“And my husband and I would wake up to ‘Gooooaaaaaaal!'”

Since 2006, Ramiel has capitalized on Silverbow being a local hot spot to watch the games. For the USA-Germany match, she doubled the staff from four servers to eight. And they’re all needed to serve bagels, muesli, coffee, among other items.

“Our beer sales at 8 a.m. have never been higher,” Ramiel says.

Germany won by one goal and dominated the match. In the final minutes of the game, USA got in a couple solid shots. When neither materialized into goals, the crowd let out screams and exclamations of disappointment. But at least everyone was disappointed together.

Eleven days, 18 hours and two minutes. That’s all it took for Juneau’s Janice Sheufelt to claim another title in the Race Across America ultra-marathon cycling event.

Sheufelt won first place in the solo female under 50 division in the race from Oceanside, Calif. to Annapolis, Md., crossing the finish line at 9:43 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday.

Five other solo women cyclists started the race this year. Three did not finish and two were still on the course on Sunday.

Last year, Sheufelt and a partner set the record for fastest time in the event’s 50-59 year-old mixed gender category. She was 46 at the time, but competed in the older age division because the Race Across America uses each team’s average age.

Sheufelt is a family physician and medical director of the Ethel Lund Medical Center in Juneau, part of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. She began participating in ultra-marathon cycling events three years ago.

Juneau police have launched an investigation into the alleged hazing of incoming high school freshmen.

Lt. David Campbell says two officers have been assigned to look into accusations reported earlier this week in the Juneau Empire about some upperclassmen paddling and injuring several students.

Campbell says the department had not heard from any victims prior to the story. Officers have since contacted a couple of parents of possible victims.

“We are actively investigating it to see what crimes were committed, if the victims and their families want to press charges,” he says.

Campbell says police are also working with the school district.

The alleged incidents happened after school was over for the summer and were not on school property.

District spokeswoman Kristin Bartlett says the administration has received reports of hazing and it doesn’t appear to be limited to one group of students.

“All three of our high school principals, from Juneau Douglas High School, Thunder Mountain High School, and Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School, are working together to follow any leads that they get on the issue,” Bartlett says.

Juneau School District has specific policies on bullying and hazing. The policies that define hazing as any act that endangers a person’s health or safety, or subjects them to physical discomfort and embarrassment because they’re part of a certain classroom, grade, or school activity.

Consequences can include expulsion.

It’s not clear how many students were involved in the recent incidents, but Bartlett says it’s important that parents and students tell school officials about the activity.

She also says it’s an opportunity to begin to change a culture that seems to accept hazing and bullying.

“If kids feel like this is something that just happens, we as a community need to speak up and make  sure that kind of an attitude gets addressed,” Bartlett says.

TMHS head football coach Jeep Rice claims some of his players have been injured in hazing. He has coached high school football for years in Juneau, beginning in the 1980s at JDHS.

He says he has no tolerance for hazing. He recalls the time when his teenager was hazed.

“We were in the same boat 25 years ago as a scared parent of an incoming freshman who was thrown into Gold Creek semi-naked with girls all around to laugh it up and whatnot, you know with seniors there. It wasn’t life threatening, but we were pretty upset, we were pretty scared,” he says.

Rice says he tells parents whose teens have been victims of hazing to “prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

Lt. Campbell says there are similarities between bullying, hazing, and domestic violence, including fear, retribution, and peer pressure, but there aren’t laws per se against bullying.

“You can’t turn to the bullying law in Title 11 of Alaska Statutes or in Title 42 of the CBJ statute, but a lot of the actions that get mentioned do meet some of the statutes and that’s what we have to look at,” he says. “Was a person injured, was a person placed in fear, was there offensive physical contact, were they engaged in challenging people to a fight, there’s all these things that do constitute violation of laws and we have to see if we have the elements of those offenses.”

Campbell says the officers assigned to the investigation are following up with witnesses, victims and parents to see if JPD can proceed with an actual case.

Juneau cyclist Janice Sheufelt is trying to win her second consecutive title in the Race Across America, and this time she’s doing it by herself.

Sheufelt is currently atop the leader board in the race’s solo female under 50 division.

The Race Across America is considered the ultimate ultra-marathon cycling event. Sheufelt and six other solo women started the race on June 10 in Oceanside, Calif. By Thursday afternoon, she’d traveled nearly 2,400 miles to western Ohio, and was about 620 miles from the finish line in Annapolis, Md. Her closest competitor is Canadian cyclist Joan Deitchman, who’s about 50 miles behind Sheufelt. Two other racers in their division have been disqualified.

Last year, Sheufelt and California cyclist Joel Sothern finished the Race Across America in record time for the mixed gender 50-59 year-old age division. Though Sheufelt was 46 at the time, she was able to participate in the category because the race averages the age of each team.

After last year’s win, Sheufelt said her next goal was to do the race solo.

Sheufelt is a physician and medical director of Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s Ethel Lund Medical Center in Juneau.

While she’s been an avid cyclist for many years, she only began participating in competitive ultra-marathon events three years ago.

You can follow Sheufelt’s progress at the Race Across America website.