Sports agent helps athletes prepare for life after Olympics

Published: 2006-02-15

TURIN, Italy (CNS) -- Speedskaters spend many hours sharpening their blades to maximize their cutting power for when they make tight turns on slick ice. One Olympic luge hopeful, Patrick Quinn, is helping these athletes sharpen their marketable career skills so they are ready to make a living after the games. Patrick Quinn, who missed making his third Winter Olympics last December by a fraction of a second, is in Turin mentoring Olympic athletes and spinning their victories to the media and big-name sponsors. The 39-year-old Catholic from Chicago is an agent for about a dozen U.S. athletes competing at the games. "I'm like one-stop shopping" for interested sponsors, he told Catholic News Service. He said while athletes focus all their time and energy preparing and thinking about their next races "I'm thinking about what will set you up for the rest of your life," after the limelight and glory are gone. Quinn is the founder and head of Q Sports Marketing, an advertising and marketing company that promotes Olympians. He is a parishioner at Christ the King Catholic Church in Lombard, Ill.

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