Bulldogs reflect on the Olympic Spirit

By Albert Chen and David Goldenberg

The other day, when he was channel surfing during a quiet night at home, Maturo stumbled onto a program that was reliving the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. "I almost began to cry," he said. "Suddenly, all the memories came back."

Maturo has many tokens to remind him of the Games: a box full of pins, a thick book of photos, a dresser filled with Olympic clothing. And then there's that tattoo down on his left thigh. Maturo decided that everytime he showers, he wants to be reminded of his experiences as the Olympic ice hockey team's equipment manager.

"If I talk too much," Maturo will warn you if you ask him something about the Olympics, "I'll start crying."

Courtesy Ed Maturo The U.S. Olympic ice hockey team's locker room was maintained by Yale athletics equipment manager Ed Maturo during the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Maturo joined Yale men's ice hockey coach Tim Taylor on the team's staff.

For people all over the world, new memories will be born in the next two weeks, as the Winter Games in Nagano commence tonight. For Maturo and three Yale head coaches, the days leading to these Games have begun to stir memories of their own past Olympic experiences.

Dreams realized

For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of a career and the realization of a life-long dream. Tim Taylor, head coach of the men's hockey team, was a year out of college when he tried out for the 1964 Olympic hockey team. After several months of training, Taylor was one of the last players to be cut from the team.

"I always dreamed about participating in the Olympics," Taylor said. "I remember watching the 1960 games, and being so moved by it." Twenty years later, in 1984, Taylor's dream was realized when he was selected to be an assistant coach on the Olympic hockey team. "Certainly a dream come true," he remarked. Taylor was the head coach of the last Olympic hockey team in 1994.

Women's track and cross-country coach Mark Young, ES '68, was once a potential Olympic athlete himself. He set numerous track records during his undergraduate years. "I had enough talent my senior year to daydream about [the Olympics], to think that maybe..." he said, with his voice trailing off. "Well, it just didn't happen."

Though Young's dreams of becoming an Olympic athlete never materialized, his aspirations of going to the Olympics have. In December, Young was selected to be one of eight coaches for the women's track team in the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney. Young said that he was surprised by the selection. "I was overwhelmed. It's such a great honor to be selected to represent your country."

When Frank Keefe, Yale's aquatic director for the last 19 years, first found out that the Olympic committee had elected him in 1984 to be an assistant coach on the swimming team, he, too, was somewhat surprised. Keefe had been at Yale for almost six years and was beginning to think that he was no longer a prominent figure on the national swimming scene. "I'm glad they didn't forget me," he said. "A lot of coaches never get the chance."

The `chance' Keefe was referring to was the opportunity to lead the best swimmers in the nation in competition against the best swimmers in the world. "It was a time consuming experience...and we didn't get paid for it. We just had the honor of being there."

The Olympic spirit

Keefe remembers one Olympic experience that was particularly meaningful to him. "One day during the [1984] Olympics, I woke up in my dorm room and looked out of the window. From where I was standing I could see the [Olympic] pool and the stands. They were completely full, with almost 10,000 people. I thought to myself, `How could you be late to the Olympics?'" Then Keefe looked at his watch. It was 7:30 a.m. These fans had gathered for the warm-up, which was not even happening for almost three hours. "It was almost scary, but it was very, very exciting."

Yale fencing coach Henry Harutunian also remembers the impact of the Olympic spectators. He was one of three fencing coaches selected for the 1984 team. "In the Olympics," he stated, "that is when the most surprises happen. Thousands of fans there, cheering `U.S.A., U.S.A.' Anything can happen." Indeed, for that year, for the first time in decades, an American won a medal in fencing.

Maturo remembers the first frantic, wild days of the Games. "They lined us up in a building and stripped us down to our undies. We walked around for over an hour, and people fit us for sports jackets, sweatshirts, socks, anything and everything you could imagine."

Maturo's home is full of Olympic souvenirs. "Wherever we went, people kept giving us stuff," he said. While walking in the village one day, Maturo traded away several small U.S. hockey pins that were given to each member of the hockey team. He later found out that each pin was worth hundreds of dollars.

New era

The Olympics have changed dramatically, even in the four years since Taylor was head coach. Taylor's team was made up of amateur athletes. This year, for the first time, NHL players are invited to compete.

"We'll just have to see what happens," Taylor said, "But, I was turned off by the Dream Team," he said, referring to the U.S. basketball team in the 1992 Summer Games in Seoul. That was the first year that NBA players participated in the Olympics. "They refused to stay in the Olympic village and isolated themselves in their expensive hotel. It demeaned a lot of what the Olympic experience means."

"The dream of the American boy has been shattered," Maturo said. Maturo believes that the inclusion of NHL players will perhaps provide more national interest in the sport of hockey, but believes the changes aren't worth it. "There used to be that dream of any young kid, maybe a Yale student, trying out for and making the Olympic team," he said. "That's gone now." Taylor added, "It's the 1990s, and we all must understand that it's the day and age of the commercialization of the Olympics."

Keefe agreed. "The days when there were opportunities for amateur athletes are gone. I liked it when they did it for the love of the game rather than for a buck...Now, everybody has a dream team: basketball, hockey, and pretty soon, even baseball."

Keefe, who was also the Olympic swimming team's head manager in 1988, thinks that having professionals compete diminishes the competitive atmosphere. "They don't take it as seriously," he said. "There are many great amateurs out there that now will never have the chance to compete." He added, "My swimmers wanted two things: to win medals and to represent their country."

An emotional roller-coaster

When Ed Maturo arrived in Connecticut's Cromwell Rink in August of 1993, he knew that the next seven months would be something he would cherish for the rest of his life.

"The media was all over the place," he said. "There was so much excitement. And this was before the team was completely set." For the next seven months, Maturo and Taylor travelled to all regions of the world and competed in a total of 61 matches before arriving in Lillehammer. "Together," Taylor said, of his Olympic teams, "we lived, trained, bled, won, and lost. What formed was an incredible sense of unity." For Taylor, the 1994 Olympics ended in disappointment. After a successful tour, in which they went 37-17-7, the U.S. team fell short of a medal.

Maturo remembers sitting in the locker room after the team's 6-1 loss to Finland, which eliminated the squad from medal contention. During the hours following the loss, Maturo began to cry. "I've lost a mother and a father," he reflected. "This was just as crushing."

Suddenly, the seven months of daily practices, constant media attention, and dreams of a medal came to an abrupt and unforgiving halt. Though the team still had games to play, Maturo said that most of the team's players wanted to go home. "You sacrifice everything for that medal. Then, just like that, it's over."

For most Olympians, this is often how the Olympic experience ends. Tears and disappointment. But four years later, the tears that Maturo sheds when he remembers those seven months are of a different kind. "It's weird," he said. "I'll always regret the fact that I didn't bring a diary along. So much happened, and there's so much I could forget."

In the next two weeks, Maturo will relive moments of an unforgettable experience, moments that will produce all kinds of tears. Tears of disappointment, tears of pride.

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