Getting on Board With Jim Shea Jr.

Jim Shea Jr. is going to need a bigger sled. The list of people ready to take that 4,380-foot run with him in the skeleton competition is growing, and you’re welcome to hop on.

I signed up on a whim, by flipping through a book and randomly picking a U.S. Olympian to get to know and then follow at these Games. I landed on skeleton and Jim Shea Jr.

The headfirst version of luge, which is making its return to the Olympics after a 54-year absence, might be an obscure sport, but this wasn’t an unknown guy. He had a made-for-NBC story, as what was to be a celebration of three generations of Olympic athletes took a tragic turn when his grandfather, 1932 speedskating gold medalist Jack Shea, was killed in a car crash in

January.

Millions of Americans met Jim Jr. through his prominent role in the opening ceremony. His Olympic teammates selected him to take the athletes’ oath, just as his grandfather did in their hometown of Lake Placid at the 1932 Games. He and his father, Jim Sr., held the Olympic torch together in Rice-Eccles Stadium in the final legs of the relay.

I got to see the playful side of Jim Jr. the day before at a gathering with reporters. When his cell phone went off, he joyously held it up so everyone could hear his new ring tone, “Low Rider.” He even sang his customized version of the song: “Da-da-da-da-daaa-daaa-da, who’s calling Jimmy?”

And it turns out his grandfather was born in 1910, the same year my grandmother was born in upstate New York. Maybe they crossed paths when they were younger. That’s one of the toughest parts of losing elders, the questions that can never be answered.

At least Shea absorbed as much as he could about the Olympic experience from his grandfather during the time they did share together.

Jack told Jimmy about what it was like when he took the oath in 1932.

“He said that literally your hair stood on end,” Jim Jr. said. “And he could feel the heartbeat of America--like the commercial. He said you could feel the rush of energy and so many people. He just said his heart was just pounding and it was an almost religious experience.”

The family debated commercialism in the Games; Jack ached when he heard athletes talk about the Olympics as a marketing vehicle, something to turn gold into green. The Salt Lake bribery scandal hurt too. But mostly he taught Jimmy about the true meaning of the Olympics

“He always talked about the Angel of Peace,” Shea said. “It brings the world together, through sport and competition. He just knew the importance of it. It’s not about winning the medals. It’s about competing. It’s the real essence of the Games.”

Even though Jim’s father competed in the Nordic combined and cross-country events at the 1964 Innsbruck Games, Shea said he never felt pressure to follow in their footsteps, like a son groomed to take over the family business.

He started playing hockey. Then he turned his attention to bobsled.

“I didn’t have the size that I needed to be good,” said Shea, who also had a brief fling with luge. “So I lost a lot of weight and I tried skeleton. It was just more exciting to me. Going headfirst appealed to me. As a kid, you go down face-first. You’re by yourself. It was just nicer.”

Problem was, Shea and the Americans weren’t very good. They were traveling through Europe, floundering through the World Cup season in 1997, when the team’s coach decided they should head home. But Shea stuck around.

“I was obsessed with doing well,” he said. “I knew that if I got the time and the experience on the track--[even] half of [what] the Europeans had that I was going against--if I had a sled, if I had time on the track, I could do well. I knew it.”

He called his father to say he would be staying around Europe. And he was broke.

“I thought, ‘That’s Jimmy,’” Jim Sr. said. “I went out and sold his Jeep for him and sent the money over with another competitor. I think [I made] 1,700 bucks. Seventeen hundred bucks to somebody that’s living on a shoehorn is a lot of money. But he was living his dream.”

Shea put a wooden board at the bottom of a hockey goalie bag, put his sled on top of that, then crammed his clothes into the bag. He dined on gas-station hot dogs. He tried his best to negotiate the European train system (“I went to the wrong Altenberg three times,” he said). He’d show up at tracks, do some maintenance work in exchange for free runs and sleep in the bobsleds. His other accommodations weren’t much better.

“When I was in Austria, I didn’t sleep in one place that didn’t have animals underneath it,” Shea said.

He befriended the other members of the sport, which forms a tight community. The British team adopted him as their “Pet Yank.” He learned from them all. Then he beat them in 1999 to become the first American to win a skeleton world championship.

He didn’t get to share the experience with his grandfather too much (“I couldn’t really afford a phone call,” Shea said), which was why these Olympics were to have been the ultimate family moment. Even though Jack was 91, he was in good health and ready to make the trip to Salt Lake.

“We always said that Jack would live to be 1,000,” Lake Placid Mayor Roby Politi said. “He was sharp as a tack. His spirit was wonderful. When he carried the Olympic torch [at the Lake Placid Olympic stadium in December], he jogged it in and lit the caldron.”

Two months later, two-thirds of the way across the country, the flame passed into the hands of the Shea family again.

“Both Jimmy and I felt there were three of us, my dad was with us,” Jim Sr. said. “It was special. We’ve kind of been on a roller-coaster ride, with Jimmy making the team and Dad’s untimely death. That was a very, very proud moment for all of us.”

There is so much going on right now that it’s easy to forget both men are still early in the grieving process.

“I’ve got a lot of emotions built up, a lot of things that have happened to me lately,” Jim Jr. said. “I’m saving it all for after the Games.”

Said Jim Sr.: “It catches you. You have the rush all the time, but then you always have moments.

“You never know when it’s going to creep up on you. You talk about the opening ceremonies.... At the moment it was just so spectacular for us. Then you reflect back. The three of us could have physically been there.... It’s a very emotional ride for us.”

Jack Shea was to have been honored at a breakfast for U.S. Olympians Sunday morning. While searching through his father’s belongings, Jim Sr. found a speech Jack had written for the occasion. He read it on Sunday, sniffling between words, then received a standing ovation.

Jim Jr. will place a funeral card from his grandfather’s service underneath his helmet before he makes his run today. So will several of his competitors.

“He’s going to slide with all of us,” Shea said.

It’s the Olympic spirit, championed by Jack Shea, carried out by his grandson’s friends.

“Probably the most special thing about being an Olympian is meeting all of the athletes from the world,” Jim Sr. said. “Basically you become a family.”

Although they lost their patriarch, the family is growing. Everyone is welcome. Come along for the ride.