8801070814
DETROIT FREE PRESS
880214
Sunday, February 14, 1988
METRO FINAL
1E
Photo Color;Photo
MITCH ALBOM
CALGARY '88 ; LIST OF U.S. LUGE TEAM MEMBERS ATTACHED AT END OF TEXT
Copyright (c) 1988, Detroit Free Press
BORN TO LUGE
WHEN THEY LIT THE CALGARY TORCH, MY MIND RACED BACK TO
... TURKEYS
CALGARY, Alberta -- The van that would take me to the greatest
adventure of my life was speeding toward the East German border. The driver, a
bearded man called Bob (Bullet) Hughes, was talking nonstop. He wore a red
cap, to hide his bald head, and furry boots, one of which was slammed on the
gas.
"LUGERS LOVE SPEED!" he yelled over the engine. I forced a smile. Hughes
was manager of the U.S. luge team, a ragtag group of ice sledders who raced,
feet-first, down a winding ice track at speeds up to 70 m.p.h. -- with nothing
but a helmet and prayers to protect them. Insane? Of course they were insane.
Would you do that?
I would. Oh, I didn't know I would back in that van. All I knew then was
that I was a young free-lance writer who had spent his last $500 to get over
there, and please God, let there be a story, so I could sell it and pay my
rent in New York.
"I should warn you," Hughes said as we reached the border crossing, a
dark, concrete place filled with stern-looking guards. "We could have some
trouble. My papers aren't in order."
He paused.
"Also, I'm smuggling in two turkeys for Thanksgiving."
"Turkeys?" I said. . . .
What crazy turns life takes. They lit the Olympic torch here Saturday to
start the XV Winter Games, and that's all I could think about, that ride, that
trip, that November five years ago when I hooked on with the luge team and
fell into a world of speed and adventure. It was the closest I would ever come
to being an Olympian. I remember all of it.
"This is the reporter I was telling you about," Hughes said, introducing
me once we arrived, after midnight, at the team's small, dorm-like quarters in
Oberhof, East Germany.
I nodded hello. These were athletes? There was Frank Masley, a thin,
bespectacled draftsman from Delaware, and Tim Nardiello, long hair, unshaven,
and Bonny Warner, a freshman from Stanford, and Dick Healy, an auto mechanic,
and Toni D'Amengella, a high school junior, and Svein Romstad, a Norwegian
coach, and half a dozen others, just sitting around, dressed in socks and long
johns. They looked like orphans. And they gaped at me as if I had come down
the chimney with a bag of toys. A reporter? For them?
"Uh, when was the last story you had written about you?" I asked.
No one could remember.
"Don't worry," Hughes said, putting an arm around me with a devious laugh,
"you're one of us now. We'll give you a good story."
This, I soon discovered, was what he meant: I would sleep on the floor in
a room with Hughes and Romstad. I would wake at dawn, help them load the sleds
in the van, ride to the ice track, unload, march up and down dozens of times,
hands in pockets, feet numb, face frozen. Sometimes I would drive the lugers
from the bottom to the top (nearly three-quarters of a mile). Sometimes I
would fetch helmets, or gloves, or sandpaper. Sometimes I would stand
alongside the ice and yell messages. Remember "Whisper Down The Lane"? This
was "Holler Up the Hill." Someone would yell something, the person 30 yards
up would listen, turn, yell it, the next person up would listen, turn, yell
it, until the words worked their way to the top of the track.
The Americans were amateurs in the truest -- and least expensive -- sense
of the word. Training meals were often candy bars purchased along the highway.
Speed suits were old and torn and patched with carpet tape. These lugers paid
for everything themselves, including gas.
They raced. They practiced. They drank beer and dreamed about the
Olympics. I took it all down, filling a dozen notebooks. But in a funny way,
I began to feel a part of it, too. I was bounced from room to room (or floor
to floor) until I got to know all the team members, especially those who
snored. When I joined them they were training for a 10-day, three- country
race -- East Germany, Austria and West Germany. I can still see the food on
the tables in Oberhof: old cheese, mystery meat, rolls so hard we called them
"hand grenades."
"INCOMING!" someone would yell as he tossed one into the air.
Then the food fight would begin.
Lugers lie supine on their sleds, steer with their feet, and never, never,
lift their heads up to see where they're going -- lest they shift weight and
crash into the walls. A luge ride is the ultimate rush, because every instinct
tells you to get up, and every lesson tells you: Do it and you're dead.
Well, somewhere along the way, after watching hundreds of runs down the
track, I got the idea that maybe I should try this, to see what it was like.
Perhaps, I thought, I could become good enough one day to go for the Olympics
myself. After all, how many Americans were even interested in this? When I
mentioned it to Hughes and Romstad, they grinned and said, "Soon," although
they seemed to have some mischief in mind.
Meanwhile, we traveled on, from Oberhof to West Germany to Austria. Who
back home even knew we were here, on these snowy European highways? At that
point, no American had ever won a medal in a World Cup luge race, let alone
the Olympics.
Maybe that was part of the fun, being such underdogs. I still remember
standing with the American team members, saluting as the Russians marched by,
then doing cheap imitations of authoritative coaches ("You VILL do VAT I
SAY!"). The East Germans and Czechs would nod when they passed. More
imitations.
One of our lugers, a guy named Ron Rossi, was in love with a luger named
Sue on the Canadian team. During competitions he would sneak out at night,
stuffing a pillow under his covers in case somebody checked. "Cover for me,"
he once told me. I happily agreed.
There was Bo Jamieson, blond, tall, as handsome as any ski instructor, and
his partner, Terry, whose brother had been killed in a bobsledding accident.
There was Romstad, the Norwegian coach, whose knowledge of German helped us
con two women into dancing with us in a small Austrian nightclub one night. I
remember holding the woman at a distance, like a piece of porcelain, and just
sort of smiling, because I didn't know a word of her language, nor she mine.
There was a lot of laughter, singing, teasing, sweating. There were late
nights in Austrian bars, and late nights in West German bars. Luge racers
needn't be in great shape as much as they need to be heavy. "Weight is speed,"
they will tell you, so a couple of beers won't hurt. And pass the potatoes.
Which brings us to the turkeys. Something about winter in a foreign
country can really make you homesick. So it was that we took those turkeys,
which Hughes had smuggled in my first night, and brought them to an East
German cook, who had never seen such creatures, and told him what to do.
Warner made a stuffing out of white bread, and red potatoes doubled as yams.
That night, everyone put on a clean shirt, even Healy, the auto mechanic, and
we sat at the dining room table. "Happy Thanksgiving," we said, raising our
glasses, and even the cook joined in the toast.
The day came, finally, when I was to get on a sled. Now, mind you, by
this point, I had already seen two lugers come flying out of the track and
taken away to hospitals. I had seen the bruises and cuts and gashes on the
Americans' bodies from collisions with the walls. And suddenly, there I was,
alongside a serpentine ice track in Igls, Austria, surrounded by these men and
women who had become my friends.
"Get in," they said.
I wanted to start around Curve 12, which was as close to the bottom as you
could get without walking.
"A real man would go from Curve 7," Romstad said.
I got in at Curve 9.
They pushed. I was off. How can I describe that first ride? I would like
to tell you what I saw, except the minute the sled started to move, I began
panting like a dog and fogged the visor on my helmet. And then the bumping
started. Scrape! Oops. Hit the wall. Scrape! Oops. Now into a curve, suddenly
I was on my side, no, now I was flat again, then on my side, then flat, bump,
scrape, side, flat, bum-bum-bum-bum-bum, up, curve, down, flat, up, down, and
whoa, I was stopping, I was stopping, thank you, Lord, I will never sin again!
A huge breath exploded from my lungs. The visor cleared. In one magic
moment, having realized all my body parts were safe, I suddenly knew what it
was that attracted these guys to this crazy sport. I also knew my Olympic
dreams were over. I could never master this. Filled with humility, I reached
for the side of the track to get out, as I had seen them do hundreds of times.
Of course, it helps to pick the right side. I did not. Hooking it with one
arm, I yanked my body up, over, and splat! I fell flat in the snow.
And there, wet, cold and embarrassed, I heard a funny sound. Clapping. I
pushed the wetness from my eyes, and, looking up, I saw the team just a few
feet away, smiling, laughing, but clapping, yelling, "Way to go" and "All
right!"
In all the years and all the sports that have followed, I never felt
closer to a bunch of athletes than that.
Time and money change everything. The U.S. luge team here is greatly
improved, filled with new, young faces. Bonny Warner could win a medal this
time. Masley, chosen the flag bearer for the 1984 Games, is now highly
regarded as well. Hundreds of articles have been written about the sport, and
team members no longer gape when a reporter shows up. The profits from the
'84 Summer Games gave luge more money than it ever dreamed of. Suddenly, there
are new sleds and new uniforms and walkie- talkies, and nobody plays "Holler
Up the Hill" anymore.
"Not the way it used to be, is it?" Masley said a few days ago, when I
visited the track here. He was wearing a nice, new speed suit. No holes.
I nodded. Progress, money, technology. The way of the world. So be it.
Maybe there will never be, for any American team anyhow, as footloose,
ramshackle, wildly glorious time as the early days of luge. But for a brief
few weeks that cold November, I tapped into it -- and I think I saw what this
Olympic spirit stuff is all about: working from scratch, with only dreams in
your pocket.
And it was a blast. Someone told me they were thinking about history and
great Olympic champions when they saw that flame lit Saturday. I smiled. I was
thinking about turkeys.
THE U.S. OLYMPIC LUGERS
* MEN: Singles: Frank Masley, Newark, Del.; Tim Nardiello, Lake Placid, N.Y.;
Duncan Kennedy, Lake Placid, N.Y. Doubles: Joe Barile, Saddle River, N.J.;
Steve Maher, Los Gatos, Calif., Tim Nardiello, Lake Placid, N.Y.; Miro
Zajonc, Annapolis, Md.; Jon Owens, Bethel, Maine.
* WOMEN: Singles: Bonny Warner, Mount Baldy, Calif.; Cammy Mylar, Lake Placid,
N.Y.; Erica Terwillegar, Lake Placid, N.Y.
* STAFF: Wolfgang Schaedler, Triesanberg, Liechtenstein (head coach); Ron
Rossi, Lake Placid, N.Y. (assistant); Mary Ellen Fletcher, Long Island, N.Y.
(manager).
CUTLINE:
Our intrepid columnist speeds (sort of) down the luge course in the winter of
1983 at Igls, Austria.
The 1984 U.S. luge team presented this picture to Mitch Albom shortly after
his travels with the group. The Olympic luge events start today.
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