An Olympic Legacy

No American will bring a better Olympic family resume to Salt Lake for the 2002 Winter Games than Jimmy Shea Jr. Unfortunately, because of a recent tragedy, none will carry as much sorrow either.

Shea is one of those people who found a purpose through sports. At the age of 25, with any hope of a lacrosse or hockey career behind him, he was attending community college and working at a restaurant in his hometown of Lake Placid, New York, when he met Scott Muckelroy, then a member of the U.S. bobsled team. Muckelroy criticized Shea and his friends, calling them out of shape, poor excuses for athletes, even though several were about to join him at the bobsled track.

The bobsledder's words proved to be Shea's motivation. He decided to give sports another try--specifically, the skeleton, a new Olympic event in which participants lie face-first on a luge-like sled and go sailing down a bobsled-like run at high speeds.

"For an adrenaline junkie like me, there's no bigger high," Shea says. "It was a wicked challenge and just a great experience."

Even though the U.S. skeleton team struggled at first (it once cut short a European tour because of a lack of funds, leaving Shea to hitchhike to events), within five years of picking up a sled, the Lake Placid native was world champion.

Last year when Jimmy Shea was selected to the Olympic team, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Jack, and his father, Jim Sr., it marked the first time three generations from the same family had made a U.S. Olympic team.

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