MISSOULA — Brody Grebe had been reluctant to talk about what he called a "side quest."
But the Melstone cowboy and former Montana State football All-American finally relented in January at a gathering of Bobcat alumni in Nashville prior to MSU playing in the FCS national championship.
"Since I've been asked a lot about this, yeah, I went out to a bobsledding tryout (last) summer, and I did well enough that I was fortunately asked to come back to go to Olympic Trials," Grebe said.
That's right: Grebe, after his NFL hopes didn't pan out last spring and summer, took an unexpected shot.
He had spent the early parts of 2025 training for his Pro Day and a chance in the NFL. He received a minicamp tryout with the Minnesota Vikings, but that's as far as his pro football dreams advanced.
So, already in the best shape of his life, Grebe, who was listed at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds on Montana State's 2024 football roster, tried out for Team USA.
"I went to Olympic Trials, and I had a really good experience there," he said. "And I did well, and I was right on the cusp, kind of, of making the Olympic team."
Without Grebe, the U.S. men didn't medal at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. Their two-man team of Frank Del Duca and Josh Williamson placed fourth behind three German pairs, and their four-man teams were 11th and 12th.
For the uninitiated, which included Grebe less than a year ago, he explained the types of athletes the team needed.
"It's a weird combination because it's a combination of power getting it off the start and then being also with fast guys getting it down, because you're running it down the hill a little bit," he said. "So you got to have some powerful guys to get it off the start, and then usually there's a couple of track guys that are kind of in the back that are jumping in last. So, there's a lot of football guys and a lot of track guys that do it."
Grebe missed the cut to make the Olympic roster — "due to inexperience," he said — so he spent the fall and winter adjusting to post-athletics life.
He finally got to go hunting again in the fall, got back in the basketball gym and lost some weight after returning to a normal diet — as opposed to the 6,000-calorie-a-day regimen he was on at MSU.
He got married and landed a chemical engineering job in Williston, N.D. But he'll always have that adventure flying down a sheet of ice.
"That was a bit of a side quest, I guess you could say," he said. "It was never my dream to be a bobsledder, but, yeah, just a good experience."
