Where Are They Now? Jeremy Bloom

Jeremy Bloom is a three-time World Champion, two-timeOlympic competitor and the only Olympic skier who also played in the National Football League. 

By Edith Thys Morgan

Jeremy Bloom is a planner…to a point. That point typically comes just when he launches towards his next big goal in life. At age 37, he’s already achieved more goals than most would dare envision accomplishing in a lifetime of hard work. At age ten Bloom set a goal to ski in the Olympics and play football in the National Football League. He did both, becoming a two-time Olympian (2002, 2006) in freestyle mogul skiing, then being drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. He is the only athlete to ski in the Olympics and also be drafted into the NFL. And that was just a start.

Along the way he became a three-time mogul World Champion, fashion model, and TV personality. While in the NFL, he worried about being productive after sports, and took advantage of an NFL partnership program to study entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business. After retiring from football in 2008, and forming a successful nonprofit to give back to society, he started Integrate, a marketing software company in 2010. As Integrate continues to grow, Bloom explains how he planned its success. “We like to call it jumping out of an airplane and assembling the parachute on the way down,” Bloom laughs. “I love that part of it.”

Indeed, the uncertainty that goes along with bold ambition is one of the many sports parallels Bloom sees in business. “In some ways it is very similar to being an athlete. You set a really big dream and vision and have a little bit of an idea of how to get there. But everybody’s journey is different. You have to take it one day at a time.” 

As golden as Bloom’s career has been, it has not been easy. His name has been in the news recently with California passing the Fair Pay to Play Act in September 2019, which permits college athletes in the state to hire agents and be paid endorsement money, essentially doing nothing less than rewiring amateur college athletics. Other states are sure to follow California, eventually leading to racers on elite college ski teams, for instance, being able to accept big-dollar endorsements from sponsors.

Bloom helped get this tectonic shift in college athletics moving 15 years ago when he sued the NCAA to allow him to accept skiing endorsements—which totaled as much as six figures—while also playing college football at the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder. After two years, he lost his legal battle, and quit college football to prepare full time for skiing in the Olympics.

He dominated the sport in 2005, and entered the 2006 Games as the favorite, but did not medal. From there, he went directly into the NFL, an acronym he defines as “Not For Long,” and spent much of the next three years sidelined by injury.  

These experiences were fodder for Bloom’s book Fueled by Failure (Entrepreneur Press, 2015), which touches on his life’s philosophy, including: his 48-hour rule for steeping in and obsessing on failure before moving on; the Five Pillars of success in his company (performance, entrepreneurship, responsibility, creativity and humility); and positive reminders like “Don’t let the good days go to your head or the bad days go to your heart.” Other than his book’s title, little about Bloom’s life reads like failure. 

GROWING UP

Jeremy Bloom was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, and grew up in nearby Loveland (the town, not the ski area), the youngest of three in a skiing family. While skiing with their older children, his parents, Larry and Char, often left Jeremy with his grandfather, Jerry, who outfitted him with a superhero cape and baited him down the slopes with mini Snickers and an abiding faith in his abilities.

Larry, an avid sports fan, tossed the football with Jeremy in the afternoons, and indoors at night. “We spent countless hours watching the Broncos, and during the Olympics that’s the only thing that was on our TV,” recalls Bloom. When watching the 1992 Olympics, young Jeremy told his parents he wanted to ski in the Olympics and play in the NFL. Larry and Char shared what Bloom describes as “a healthy disregard for the impossible,” and encouraged him to pursue both paths. 

While competing for Team Breck he became the youngest athlete on the U.S. Ski Team at age 15, while also becoming a high school track and football star. His ski coach from age 11, Scott Rawles, describes the quick-footed Bloom as “the best trained athlete out there,” thanks to his track and football success. Additionally, “he had the mental attitude over everyone,” says Rawles.

Longtime U.S. Ski Team star and freestyle legend Trace Worthington was struck by Bloom’s outgoing personality and confidence with the older generation of athletes, as well as his savvy regarding sponsorship. He arrived on the scene with an agent, in pursuit of contracts for both skiing and modeling. To sponsors the pushy young kid delivered. “He had this infectious positive attitude,” says Worthington. “A lot of us would sit around and joke, ‘What doesn’t Jeremy Bloom do great?’” After the freestyling success of Eric Bergoust, Nikki Stone and then Jonny Moseley, Bloom stepped boldly into a legacy and the spotlight. 

TAKING OFF IN ALL DIRECTIONS

By the 2002 Winter Olympics, at age 19, Bloom was already World Champion, and though he did not win a medal, he set his sights on the 2006 Games. In the meantime, the small (5 foot 9 inches, 180 pounds) but fast athlete had been recruited by the University of Colorado Buffalos as a wide receiver, and enrolled that fall. In his first game, on the third punt return team, Bloom didn’t expect to see any action, but the coach sent him in. He ran 75 yards for a touchdown. Bloom set a pile of records at CU and earned All-American honors freshman and sophomore years, all while continuing to compete full time in skiing. 

“I had to radically change my body for each season,” explains Bloom, who had to gain 15 pounds for football, and then lose it almost immediately for the competitive ski season. Mentally, however, doing both sports was an advantage. “When I was ending football season, my skiing competitors were coming off eight months with no competition. Mentally I was so sharp and ready to jump back in.” Additionally, he was familiar with the pressure of playing in front of 50,000 people. 

Off the slopes and the field, Bloom was also building his brand in mainstream culture, sought after for modeling, product endorsements, TV guest hosting and celebrity appearances (he won the 2003 CBS Superstars Competition). While playing for CU, Bloom battled the NCAA for the right to keep his earnings—upwards of $350,000 per year— from skiing, his non-NCAA sport. Before starting his junior year in 2004, the NCAA declared him ineligible to compete in college football, and Bloom chose to focus on skiing and the 2006 Olympics. Bloom dominated the 2005 season, winning a then record six straight competitions. Off the hill, he had near rock-star status, and entered the 2006 Winter Games in Torino as both a celebrity and the heavy favorite for gold. The capriciousness of athletics struck, however, and the gutsy, usually rock-solid Bloom bobbled, finishing 6th. It was a surprise for fans, and devastating for Bloom, who calculated that he “missed a medal by an inch.” 

Three days later, despite not having played football for two years, Bloom crossed the pond back to Indianapolis and the 2006 NFL Combine for prospective draftees. In April he was picked in the 5th round for the Philadelphia Eagles as a returner and wide receiver. While in Philadelphia, Bloom enrolled in the NFL program that arranged for players to attend MBA classes at Wharton after practice and in the summer. Sidelined with a hamstring injury, his passion for training started shifting towards business and entrepreneurship. After two years, Bloom was traded to the Steelers, and quit football a year later, at age 27.

RETIREMENT AND REBOUND

That same year, Bloom started his first business, inspired by his love for his grandfather Jerry, and his grandmother Donna (who lived in his home 19 years), and also by the profound experiences while traveling with the U.S. Ski Team. He saw how elderly people are revered, respected and treated with dignity in other cultures like Japan and Scandinavia, and wanted to bring some of that respect home by starting Wish of a Lifetime, a nonprofit that grants seniors their wishes. The first year Wish of a Lifetime granted four wishes, and now, ten years later, the organization of 40-50 people grants one wish per day, in the U.S. and Canada. These range from trips to reconnect with family, to fulfilling lifelong dreams, to revisiting favorite activities or places, to getting something as simple as a warm rug underfoot. The effect on recipients is not so much about the wish, “but that someone cares,” says Bloom.

Though Wish of a Lifetime remains a top priority in Bloom’s life, he realized that this dream would not be a path to the economic success he desired. After putting management in place, he embarked on his next venture, co-founding Integrate, a marketing software technology firm. Integrate was named best new company at the 2011 American Business Awards, the same year Bloom was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for tech innovation. In 2013 he was a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and was also inducted into the U..S Ski Hall of Fame.

A decade after its founding, Integrate, and Bloom, continue to expand and evolve. Bloom hosted CNBC’s Adventure Capitalist for two seasons and is a keynote speaker at various events. He is on the board for U.S. Ski and Snowboard, where he is focused on athlete education. “I’m passionate about the transition from sport, specifically under the lens of mentorship,” says Bloom. “That, and mental health, which is as important as physical health.”

Last year Bloom married Brazilian actress Mariah Buzolin. Now living in Denver, the couple is building a home in Boulder and looking forward to starting a family. “I’m not sure what it’ll be like,” says Bloom. “People can only prepare you so much. I’ll be assembling that parachute on the way down. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

Edie Thys Morgan is a former U.S. Ski Team member and two-time Olympian. She grew up in Squaw Valley and now lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two ski racing sons. Follow her on skiracing.com and at racerex.com.

From the January-February 2020 issue of Skiing History.