Buy gold. You hear it all the time. Protect against a weak dollar and invest in gold. A few Olympians with ties to Connecticut are bullish on gold, too. But there's no way to measure the return on their investment. Their up front cost is time, sweat and sometimes tears. Their payback? That will spread out over the rest of their life and is impossible to ever quantify.

For ice hockey players Julie Chu and Angela Ruggiero as well as snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, gold represents a lifetime achievement award that may lead to some riches. But that has never been the goal.

Chu grew up in Fairfield and later played at Choate at Wallingford. That is also where Ruggiero prepped. Both women later starred at Harvard. They helped the U.S. win a silver medal at the 2002 Olympics and a bronze in the 2006 Games. They've also won numerous world championships.

Danbury native Lindsey Jacobellis can also fill up a room with trophies and medals. She, too, has won multiple world championships. But missing from that impressive trophy case is Olympic gold.

For Jacobellis, a gold medal could lead to potential endorsement opportunities. But that is far less likely for Chu or Ruggiero.

So why would Chu and Ruggiero, both Ivy League educated, pursue something that will never pay them back monetarily anywhere near what they put into it? The same reason that motivated West Harvard native Jim Shea to win gold at the 2002 Games in skeleton.

In Shea's case, he did make money off of his gold medal. His new found fame led to a few endorsement deals. But when Jim Shea began his initial Olympic journey on a sled, with barely enough money to live, the goal was to push himself to his peak level and try to represent his country on amateur sports' biggest stage. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Chu, Ruggiero and Jacobellis have already achieved that -- wearing the red, white and blue -- representing the U.S. Now they want more. They want gold. It's an investment that will pay them back the rest of their lives. It will make the sweat, the sacrifice and the near misses, all worth the pain. It will give them a sense of pride and patriotism that few of us will ever know.