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Shea slides to victory with Grandpa in his helmet

By Lee Benson
Deseret News columnist

      There was the liver transplant snowboarder who medaled, there were the pairs skaters who not only finally got their gold medals but got to play lead guitar with the rock band Barenaked Ladies, there was the speedskater with mononucleosis coming back for gold, there was the other U.S. women's bobsled team winning gold while Mean Racine took fifth, and Wednesday, on the Utah Olympic Park skeleton track, there was the third-generation Olympian sliding his way to gold despite the death of his gold-medal grandfather barely a month ago.
      The feel-good Games just keep on feeling good, don't they?
      With the notable exception of the other 25 men competing in skeleton at Utah Olympic Park Wednesday, just who wasn't rooting for Jim Shea? Darth Vader? Al-Qaida? Lucifer?
      Here was the man so popular his teammates elected him to declare the Athlete's Oath in opening ceremonies, after which he stood at the entrance to Olympic Stadium during the Parade of Nations and high-fived as many athletes from as many countries as he could. A little later, he and his father, James, took the Olympic torch from Dan Jansen and Bonnie Blair and passed it along to Picabo Street and Cammi Granato so they could give it to the 1980 U.S. hockey team to light the caldron and begin the Salt Lake Games.
      There remains speculation that had 91-year-old Jack Shea, Jim's grandfather and James' father, not been killed in a car crash on Jan. 22 it would have been the Sheas and not the hockey team that lit the caldron on Feb. 8. Even Jim's still not sure. He said his grandfather intimated that might be the case before he died.
      What is sure is that the gold medal hanging around his neck is every bit as gold as the two Jack won as a speedskater 70 years ago at the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics, and that his USA team uniform is a direct descendent of the USA team uniforms worn by Jack in 1932 and James at the 1964 Innsbruck Games when he competed in nordic combined and cross country.
      It was a terrible thing, Jack's death, in more ways than one. The very day of the accident he'd been told of his role in opening ceremonies. One of the last things he told Jim was, "I think I screwed up the Olympics."
      But then the two living members of the Shea Olympians showed up to do their part at Olympic Stadium and Jim looked around and . . . and there was his grandfather after all.
      "I could sense he was there," said Jim.
      Moments after the ceremony, Jim got a call from his sister, Sarah, who seconded his feeling.
      "Sis called and said, 'I saw Gramps standing next to you,' " said Jim. "And I said, 'Yeah, it was nice.'"

      Fast forward 13 days to the skeleton track Wednesday morning. Face-first sledding hasn't been contested in the Winter Olympics since 1948. Jim, a three-time world champion, collects himself at the start.
      Inside his helmet is his grandfather's photo. Together, they take off down the track.
      Between them they have two gold medals; two runs later, make that three.

      At 33, Jim Shea isn't a typical rookie Olympian. It took his sport a long time to get here. But even after all that time, at the bottom of his gold-winning runs his reaction was exactly what his grandfather and his father said it would be.
      "They told me it's not about the gold medal, it's about taking part, it's about competing," he said. "And they were right."
      Then he winked and added, "Now that I've got a gold medal, I can say that."
      There's a lot of where he came from in Jimmy Shea. Winter sports and competing run through his blood. His grandfather was a speedskater, his father was a nordic jumper and skier, and he was a bobsledder before he settled on the skeleton.
      "A bobsled costs $40,000," he said, comparing the two sliding sports, "A skeleton costs $3,000, and when you fly to Europe you can take it in your luggage."
      So economy is one reason he does what he does. Another reason is it seems to be his nature.
      One of his earliest sports memories is when he was 2 or 3 years old living in Connecticut and he made his first "run."
      "Dad stuck me on a sled and kicked me down the hill," he said. "Mom cried. I laughed."
      And a third generation Olympian was off and sliding.

Lee Benson's column runs daily during the Olympics. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.