Spotlight: Danny Casper '19

In January 2023, Danny Casper ‘19 and his curling team won silver at the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games in Lake Placid this past January. Click Read More for a Spotlight on Danny.

In January 2023, Danny Casper ’19 and his curling team won silver at the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. The FISU Games is the world’s biggest international winter sports competition for collegiate athletes, ages 17 to 25, with 1,500 athletes from 600 universities and 50 countries competing in 12 sports and 86 medal events. Danny practices more than 20 hours per week to get to this level of play—but to him, it’s worth it. 
 
Danny’s dad Jeff grew up curling in his hometown of Green Bay, Wis., and introduced Danny to the sport. Danny also credits Hackley alumnus and fellow curler Andrew Stopera ’15 for helping him excel in curling. “I kind of followed in his footsteps and learned a lot from him,” Danny said. “The thing I love most about curling is how tight of a community it is, whether it is national or international. Yes, we always want to win, but I feel I can genuinely call former Olympic champions and many players from countries around the world my good friends. I feel like that is very special, and I am lucky to be in a position to say that.” 
 
A senior at the University of Minnesota, Danny is studying strategic communications. He mentioned, “I have one semester left after this one concludes. I had to take an extra semester because I am unable to take as many credits as most students do because of our tournament schedule—there is a lot of travel involved.” He mentioned that Hackley prepared him extremely well for college and the time-management skills he received at Hackley have proven helpful overall, especially with his travels. “We play on a tour schedule and travel almost every other weekend, but the big tournaments we have competed in are the University Games, and we recently placed second at the Men's Nationals,” Danny noted. “The Men's Nationals are for all ages, so placing second was big for us because we showed that even though we are young, we are ready to compete with the best in the world. We lost to the former Olympic champs in the finals, but were able to beat them in round-robin play.”
 
Danny is the skip (captain) of his team and is responsible for calling the strategy and determining the types of shots to throw. When asked about University Games, Danny said, “It was an amazing experience, and I am very fortunate to have gotten to do that.” The team lost to Great Britain in the final gold medal round, coming away with the silver. “Now that time has gone by, silver is much more enjoyable,” Danny said. “The best thing about the University Games was being the home country. There was a lot of buzz around the event, and our venue was packed with fans chanting loudly for us during our games; it was such an amazing atmosphere to play in. On top of that, walking through the village being Team USA was fun because all the locals wanted to talk to us! I will never forget the loud cheers for USA during our games and how much we fed off of that.” 

Danny’s mom, Hackley math teacher Karen Casper, his dad Jeff and other Hackley fans, including Lower School teacher Dawn Crainerand former faculty member Beth Retzloff, made the trek to Lake Placid to cheer on Danny and team USA. It was an experience Danny will never forget.

On his future in curling, Danny said, “Becoming a professional curler is something that depends on how much the sport progresses in the near future. There are only a few actual pro curlers with how small [the sport] is, but it is growing rapidly. And with sponsorships increasing and more money being put into the sport, who knows what it will look like in 5 to 10 years? If possible, I would love to be a pro, but for now, that is not as much of a focus. I am focusing on finding a job that can work well with curling and the schedule.”
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