Skip to Content
  • Browse
  • Past Issues
  • Search

Arts and Letters

Wagner History

Wagner News

Inside Sports

Alumni Stories

Obituaries

Alumni Events

From the President

Feature Stories
Winter 2018–19
Summer 2018
Fall 2017
Summer 2017
Fall 2016
Winter 2015-16
Summer 2015
Fall 2014
Winter 2013-14
Summer 2013
Fall 2012
Summer 2012
Fall 2011
Summer 2011
Fall 2010
Summer 2010
Fall 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2008
Summer 2008

Jerel Gade ’77: The Sledding Pastor

SHARE
PRINT
BACK TO TOP
Jerel Gade ’77: The Sledding Pastor
Behind the Scenes with Laura Graham ’95
My Most Important Lesson

CLAIM TO FAME: The Rev. Jerel Gade '77 has a great day job: For nearly 30 years, he's been a pastor to multi-denominational Christian congregations around Allentown, Pennsylvania — but during his off hours, he's a highly trained official in the high-speed world of international luge racing.

TOO LATE FOR LUGE? While studying at Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary in 1980, the Saugerties, New York, native volunteered at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid. Luge sledding caught his attention, but it wasn't until he attended a winter sports camp in 1993 that he rode one himself. Sliding down an icy, mile-long track at speeds averaging 65 miles per hour hooked his imagination, he says — but not his body. “I loved the sport, but I realized that the time when I could take up something like luge had passed me by.”

FINDING HIS NICHE: A few years later, Gade took his son Joshua to Philadelphia for a U.S. luge team “slider search” clinic. Soon, father and son were taking every opportunity to visit Lake Placid, where Joshua could train and compete at the Olympic facility. “I was up here so often,” Gade said during an October interview in Lake Placid, “that it seemed silly to be just standing around.” That's when he started learning how to be a luge judge, keeping competition fair by enforcing equipment and timing rules.

WORLD CLASS: Jerel Gade is now in his sixth year as a luge official. He has judged at three World Cup competitions and one World Championship. His most exciting meet, he says, was the 2009 World Championship, held right before the 2010 Winter Olympics. While Gade was officiating, Erin Hamlin became the first American woman to win a world luge title. “My congregation knows that, come vacation time, I'm going either south or north,” he says — south to visit Joshua, now a senior at the University of Central Florida, or north to judge yet another world-class sledding competition.

Fall 2010

  • Alumni Stories
  • religion
SHARE
PRINT

Related Stories

image description

A Joel W. Martin Bibliography

Jul 18, 2019 President Martin is an expert on Native American history and religion, and he has written and edited a few notable books on these topics.
image description

Meet Wagner’s 19th President

Jun 27, 2019 Joel W. Martin is a leader who loves to learn and who approaches new situations with curiosity and respect.
image description

History Makers: Peter Berger ’49 H’73

Dec 07, 2017 A Wagner philosophy major who became ‘one of the greatest sociologists of religion and modernity.’
CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES
CONTACT US

LATEST NEWS

image description

Almost a Century

Four faculty retirees collectively put in 99 years of dedicated teaching.

image description

A Term Paper for the Ages

How the biology department got its evolution mural.

image description

Connor Gibbs ’17: Composer

The high school chorus teacher creates new music for all kinds of instruments.

image description

What’s Inside: The Nursing Resource Center

Students get realistic hands-on experience in the Hi Fidelity Simulation Lab.

  • About the Magazine
  • Give to Wagner
  • Wagner Newsroom
  • Wagner Home
FOLLOW US

© 2021 All Rights Reserved