The hearts of many local people will be with Weatherly native Chad Gerhard as he participates in the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The 2004 Weatherly High School grad is the strength and conditioning coach for the U.S. Snowboard Half-pipe and U.S. Aerials team. Gerhard lives in Park City, Utah, where he's the High Performance laboratory manager at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, overseeing the testing of more than 200 athletes."I'm pretty excited, packing up and going over checklist after checklist," Gerhard said by phone this week.He left for Sochi Feb. 4 and returns Feb. 25."The first couple days I'll be busy with working out the logistics details, how to navigate, and setting up training time."Gerhard has plenty of support from his immediate and extended family in Weatherly. His maternal grandmother, Marie Seibel, and paternal grandparents, Gilbert and Shirley Gerhard, all live within an easy snowboard jump of the home of his parents, Bill and Donna Gerhard.Gilbert Gerhard was Carbon County treasurer for several terms, and he heads the Republican Committee for Carbon County. Chad's uncle, Tom Gerhard, is a Carbon County Commissioner.The outpouring of support expands from family to family members' coworkers. His parents are employed by the Hazelton School District; additionally his dad is a member of the Weatherly School and Carbon Career & Technical Institute school boards.Other supporters include the friends he made in other venues along his path, from high school and college soccer teams, youth rodeo (where he was reserve Grand Champion), BMX Bicycle competitions and of course, skiing and snowboarding."My dad took me to Split Rock when I was maybe 12, and I wanted to try a snowboard," Gerhard said. "Without any formal instruction, I just took off straight down the hill. I wrecked at the bottom, and told my dad that this was what I wanted to do."Bill Gerhard looked down at his son, lying in a heap in the snow, his glasses broken, and said what both parents always said when Gerhard wanted to try something."I told him okay," Bill Gerhard recalled. "We always supported them in everything they did and it was worth it, because we got to spend weekends with the kids."Gerhard's older sister, Kristin, participated in dance and modeling; his younger brother, Cody, won a national championship in off-road motorcycle racing that's called Hare Scrambles.After high school graduation, Gerhard studied kinesiology at Penn State from 2004-2006, and graduated from Bloomsburg University in 2010 with a degree in exercise science and athletics."We instilled in our kids to work hard, and encouraged them to do things on their own," Donna Gerhard said. "There would be the phone calls to us, when they were making major decisions, but we always let them know we supported them, even if it seemed like taking a chance."Gerhard took one of those life-changing chances about two years ago. He had a full-time, well-paying job as head conditioning coach at the Philadelphia Sports Club. He left that position to take an unpaid, six-month internship doing what he loved, working with Olympic-caliber snowboarders and aerialists."We told him not to miss the opportunity," his mom recalled. "We told him he may never get the chance again."Gerhard headed west, packing all he owned into a red Jeep, sometimes sleeping on a couch at a friend's apartment, and even sleeping in the jeep.But when the internship ended, he got hired.While other friends threw Super Bowl parties, the Gerhards threw Olympic Opening Ceremonies party, with everyone searching the crowd for a glimpse of their son."We all helped whenever we could, but he did all this on his own," Donna Gerhard said. "We're all very proud of him."We'll be featuring more local features on Olympic sports in the next two weeks. For coverage of the Olympics, visit

www.tnonline.com and click on the Olympics button on our home page.