IBEW Dad Cheers on Daughter’s Olympic DreamsFebruary 19, 2014
Last week, we reported on Worcester, Mass., Local 96 member Ekaterina Pashkevitch, who is in Sochi, Russia, playing center for the Russian Women’s Olympic Hockey Team.
But she isn’t the only IBEW member in Sochi. Springfield, Mo., Local 453 member Craig Scott is also in Russia, cheering on his daughter Emily as she competes in short track speed skating. Scott works for Payne Sign Co., an IBEW shop, and has raised Emily and her sister as a single father for most of their lives. Raising a future Olympic speed skater isn’t cheap, and the Scott family made many sacrifices to help Emily realize become a champion. Craig told the Springfield News-Leader that: [H]e has long lived paycheck to paycheck to help support his daughter’s dream. In her inline days, that meant driving across the country to competitions. The past five years it’s meant staying up all night, looking for a live stream on the Internet to watch his daughter compete. Despite winning numerous competitions, she almost didn’t make it to the Winter Games. Funding for training was cut last year, and her part-time job wasn’t bringing in enough money to pay the rent. She turned to crowdfunding, raising money from supportive fans on the Internet, which allowed her to quit her job to focus fulltime on training and join America’s Olympic delegation. “It’s taken a little while to sink in,” Craig told the News-Leader. “It’s 20 years of hard work, and finally everything sort of came together.” After a disappointing crash earlier in the week, Scott advanced into the quarterfinals of the women's short track 1,000 meters Tuesday. She next races Feb. 21. Read more coverage from NBC here. Photo used under a Creative Commons License SouthEasternStar
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