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“People will always remember Lake Placid for ‘The Miracle on Ice’, but here in Lake Placid, there was another miracle…” – Roby Politi, Former Mayor of Lake Placid

            It was a sweet victory during the Cold War.  The U.S. Olympic hockey team overcame such huge odds to defeat the Soviets in 1980 that it remains to this day “The Miracle on Ice.”  But there was another miracle during those Games that local residents of Lake Placid talk about. First, it was being able to secure the huge international event, and then actually holding the Games in the sleepy upstate New York village – a twin feat managed by a handful of “North Country boys” whose ambitions were bigger than their experience.  A few of them are still around to tell CBS News correspondent on assignment, Jim Axelrod, how they did it as they reminisce about “the other” miracle of the 1980 Winter Games.  Their remarkable story will be featured on the next edition of 60 MINUTES SPORTS, premiering Wednesday, Feb. 5 at 10:00 PM, ET/PT, only on SHOWTIME.

            It’s a miracle that will probably never be repeated in an age when the Olympics have become just too big a media event for a small town. The natives will never forget it, though.  “People will always remember Lake Placid for ‘The Miracle on Ice,’” says Roby Politi, former Mayor of the town of 2,500.  “But here in Lake Placid, there was another miracle…what those members of the Lake Placid Olympic Committee were able to accomplish…what they dared to do,” he tells Axelrod.  They were ordinary townspeople with extraordinary ambition. “…The minister, the milkman and the postman…They did not have a tremendous amount of expertise…but as a group, they had so much determination…”

            The 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Organizing Committee had a bunch of men who call themselves “The North Country Boys.” Among them were Vern Lamb of the local lumber yard; Norm Hess, a lawyer; Bob Peacock, a milkman who also served as mayor; Bernie Fell, a policeman who became a minister; and retired Postmaster Ron Mackenzie.  Jim Rogers, 81, who owned the local radio station, was on the committee too. 

            Rogers recalls how they got the Games by impressing the International Olympic Committee in their failed bid for the 1976 Winter Games.  “Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee, came up to the group and said, ‘Thank you very much for making a very impressive bid.’ And then he turned around to Mackenzie and gave him a wink and said, ‘I’m going to enjoy being in Lake Placid for the 1980 Games.’”

            Serge Lussi, 79, the local Holiday Inn owner and one of the youngest members of the committee, was chairman of the alpine skiing events. “For every other Olympic games [alpine chairmen] were all Jean Claude Killys…world class people,” he says.  “The Europeans said, ‘…how can you run the alpine when you’re nobody?’”

            The television rights to the Games that year were secured for $15 million.  NBC is said to have paid $774 million for the Games being held in Sochi. Hosting the media extravaganza that is the Olympics today is a totally different experience, a world away from the little resort in North Country.

            Figure Skater Scott Hamilton, who carried the U.S. flag into the 1980 Games, recalls the moment in history, “It was kind of mom and pop….it was just an intimate and very… small town kind of, you know, let’s put a show on for the world.”

Press Contacts:  

60 MINUTES – Kevin Tedesco 212-975-2329 kev@cbsnews.com

SHOWTIME Sports – Chris DeBlasio 212-708-1633 Chris.DeBlasio@Showtime.net

                                 Nicole Chayet 212-708-7319 Nicole.Chayet@Showtime.net