Jack Shea

Shea was a sophomore at Dartmouth College when the Olympics came to Lake Placid in 1932. The winter Olympics were only eight years old then, but Lake Placid speed skaters had already made their mark: the first gold medal in the first Winter Olympics, the 1924 Chamonix, France, games, was won by a young man from Lake Placid named Charles Jewtraw. Shea dreamed of following in Jewtraw's footsteps, and hours after taking the Olympic oath on behalf of the American team he did, winning the 500-meter speed skating event, the first event of the 1932 games. Shea also took the 1500-meter, giving him one-third of the American team's six gold medals that year.

Much had changed in Shea's life by the time the 1936 Olympics rolled around. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1934, married, and spent a year at Albany Law School, but he was forced to drop out when the Depression removed his family's ability to cover the tuition. Shea returned to Lake Placid and worked at his family's market and as a mailman.

Shea was still one of the top speed skaters in the world in 1936, but he did not compete in the Olympics that year, which were held in Berlin, Germany. Shea was a political science major at Dartmouth, so he was perhaps more aware than most of the dangers posed by the Nazi ideology. Also, he knew and respected many Jewish customers who patronized his family's market, and he did not want to give legitimacy to a regime which was so anti-Semetic. Some say that the rabbi of the community asked him personally not to participate.

Although Shea would not compete in the Olympics again, he remained involved with them. Shea was active in Lake Placid community life for years, rubbing shoulders with the numerous past and future Olympians who lived and trained there. While working as the supervisor of the township which includes Lake Placid, Shea was instrumental in bringing the Olympics back to Lake

Jack Shea

Placid in 1980. Shea also raised an Olympian, his son James, who competed in several skiing events in 1964 but did not medal. In the years before his death, Shea was outspoken in his opposition to holding the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China because of that country's checkered human rights record.