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Michael Burgess of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany isn't sure when he first heard about Jack Shea, the 1932 Olympic gold medalist in 500-meter and 1500-meter speed skating.

But the Olympian's story, he says, "was so good it had to be told. That's why I wrote it."

Shea played a large part in organizing the 1980 winter Olympics in Lake Placid -- the Olympian's hometown and a vacation destination for more than 40 years for Mr. Burgess, who's a native of Watertown.

Mr. Burgess was 26 when the Olympics came to Lake Placid in 1980. He remembers seeing the Olympic torch in the village and watching ski-jumping events. But he never met Shea, who would die in a car accident in 2002.

Mr. Burgess still regrets never having encountered the famous Olympian.

A local author who wrote a previous book on the 1980 Lake Placid winter Olympics, Mr. Burgess tells the story of Jack Shea in his latest offering, "Keeper of the Olympic Flame: Lake Placid's Jack Shea vs. Avery Brundage and the Nazi Olympics."

The author has two children, Joseph and Catherine, who are also writers. He and his wife, Kathleen, have been married for 31 years.

Shea's story
Shea was a pioneer in the sport of speed skating, becoming the first American to win two gold medals in a single winter Olympics. But that isn't all he's known for. Shea, a Catholic, made headlines when he refused to compete in the 1936 Olympic games, held in Bavaria, Germany.

"He wasn't going to cast a blind eye that Germany was discriminating against a religious group," Mr. Burgess told The Evangelist.

Adolph Hitler had become chancellor of Germany just three years prior and, within months, the Nazi party had begun to take over the German government -- and persecute Jewish people, as well as persons with disabilities and other minorities.

In 1935, a year before the Olympics, the Nuremberg Laws were passed, completely stripping Jews of their citizenship and many of their rights.

At the time, there was a large Jewish population in Lake Placid. Shea, whose family owned a local grocery store and meat market, was asked by the famed Rabbi Stephen Wise not to attend the Olympics in Germany. Wise, a Reform rabbi who had immigrated to the United States from Hungary, was an early and vehement opponent of the Nazi regime.

Don't go
Shea agreed and even took it a step further: He went public with his opposition to the so-called "Nazi Olympics," writing letters to Avery Brundage, then-president of the American Olympic Committee. Shea believed that the United States should not send any athletes to the games.

Jack Shea was not the only athlete to boycott the Olympics, though he was the only one with two gold medals under his belt. He was also just 26 years old -- the same age Mr. Burgess was when he attended the 1980 winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

"I see a young person filled with idealism," the author said. "That's the way he was, and I certainly was like that myself."

Recalling the '80 Olympics, he said: "It was so exciting, that this small town was in the modern world." It was also one of the first Olympics to be televised widely, and in color.

Mr. Burgess had researched the 1980 Olympic games for his earlier book. He is particularly fascinated by Shea's story: "Besides being such a great athlete, he was a great scholar," the author said, referring to the fact that Shea had been a political science student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Shea also studied at Albany Law School for a brief time.

Book notes
Through his knowledge of the area, Mr. Burgess was able to get material for his book from the Lake Placid Olympic Museum and from Jack's Shea's son, Jim Sr., and his brother, Gene.

During his early research, Mr. Burgess called Jim Shea, who had his father's scrapbook. Mr. Burgess took photos of letters and other pages with his cell phone. Seeing the primary document was exciting, he said, compared to just reading old news accounts of the Olympics.

The scrapbook included a letter Shea had written to Brundage.

"I cannot refrain from asking you why you are so insistent upon having the games played in Nazi Germany," the Olympian wrote, "and why you, an American, who presumably believes in freedom of speech and action, should attempt to throttle the free discussion of the entire issue involved in the holding of the Olympic games in Germany.

"I regard such participation as an insult to the honor of every athlete and a violation of fair play and sportsmanship upon which the Olympic games were founded," Shea declared.

Brundage never wrote back, but did go on to become the fifth president of the International Olympic Council.

Mr. Burgess, who serves on his parish's peace and justice committee, believes Shea's story is important today.

Role model
"He was interested in the Olympic ideal," Mr. Burgess told The Evangelist, explaining that peaceful competition and comradery between nations should be at the core of the Olympics.

In recent history, the Olympics have put a spotlight on more than just athleticism and competition. Mr. Burgess cited discrimination against homosexual athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia: "Discrimination still exists," he said.

Regarding the summer Olym­pics that just concluded in Brazil, Mr. Burgess believes that the International Olympic Committee should assist more in funding the games. Rio made headlines in past weeks about the economic strain that the games were putting on an already hurting community.

The author wonders how Shea would feel about the current Olympic situation. Shea would certainly err on the side of compassion for those affected by the Olympics: "He was a great role model."

("Keeper of the Olympic Flame: Lake Placid's Jack Shea vs. Avery Brundage and the Nazi Olympics" is available through Amazon.com, at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza and at Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs.)[[In-content Ad]]

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