World just got a little smaller: Everywhere, there is a Shea

   There’s an old cliché about coincidences – “It’s a small, small world.’’

   I get that. Everywhere I go lately, I run into the Shea family. It started in the 1973 with The Journal sports editor Dave Shea covering occasional basketball and baseball games. There were intermittent sightings of his brothers, John and Pete, and father, State Supreme Court justice Edmund Shea, usually at St. Lawrence State Park Golf Course.

   Unbeknownst to me, there was a Shea sighting last month at a driving range in Rochester, and I spotted the Shea clan last weekend in Lake Placid.

   Small world, indeed. I’m starting to feel like a stalker.

    The coincidences renewed last month at Big Oak Driving Range in East Rochester, a mere 200 miles from Ogdensburg. I was trying to figure out how to fix my driver, which was performing like a scatter gun. Hitting to all fields is great in baseball, but in golf it kills your score. Robin Williams once captured my hacker frustration with his take on golf on YouTube.com.

   I was hitting a bucket of balls when two young men in Nazareth University polo shirts approached me to ask about golf merchandising and equipment purchases for an undergraduate class in sports management.

  They wanted to know how long I have been playing (since age 14), how often I purchased clubs (10 years ago), and when I intended to buy new clubs (not soon).

   “It’s not the clubs – sure the newest technology can make you a wee bit better – it’s the way you swing them,’’ I told these students. “I used to work summers at a golf course and I distinctly remember the fellow announcing he would be breaking 90 because he bought new clubs.’’

  I remember thinking, not blurting it out with my big fat Irish mouth – “You won’t with that swing.’’

   We talked about innovations such as perimeter sole-weighting, flexible shafts, and the 460 cubic centimeter maximums on driver faces. When they asked about my background in sports, I confessed to being a former sports editor of the Democrat and Chronicle during the ’89 U.S. Open and ’95 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill County Club.

  “Wow, we got lucky and hit the jackpot with you,’’ said the student leading the project. “This is great. Thanks.’’

  A week later, an email arrived from Dave.

  “Hey, I heard you were interviewed by my brother Pete’s grandson, Karson LaRose. Great kid. Wonderful high school athlete in soccer and hockey at OFA. He is involved in ROTC at Nazareth.’’

  I was just happy to help a student, in the same vein that Dave let me cover high school basketball games for The Journal when Morristown had a bye in the 1970s.

   There was no escape from the Sheas last weekend when I toured the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid. I walked past the speedskating oval where Eric Heiden captured five gold medals and toured the hockey rink where a bunch of U.S. collegians taught the world to believe in miracles with the greatest upset in sports history, the 4-3 semifinal victory over the Soviet Union pros enroute to the gold medal.

  At the Olympic museum, the pride of Lake Placid, three generations of Sheas were enshrined in the exhibits.

   Jack Shea, Dave’s uncle, became a demi-god in his hometown when he won the 500- and 1,500-meter speedskating golds at the 1932 Games, then nobly chose not to defend his titles in Hitler’s fascist German state in 1936. By 1980, Jack played a major role in securing the Games for Lake Placid.

    Fast forward to 1964 and his son, Jim Shea, competed at Innsbruck, Austria, in three cross-country and Nordic combined events. His son, Jimmy Shea Jr., won gold in at the Salt Lake City Games when the Olympics restored the crazy, face-first luge skeleton bobsled races.

   I am hoping my next Shea sighting occurs on a golf course somewhere in St. Lawrence County. “I hope we can still sneak in a round of golf before the Northeast resembles the Arctic,’’ Dave wrote.

  For now, he is still shooting photos and pounding his keyboard, capturing the images and accounts of local athletes.

  “I get joy from the fact that I have the energy to cover the sports of my communities,’’ Dave said. “Having to the meet the daily challenges energizes me, and as the old song says, when I have the choice to ‘sit it out or dance,’ I can still choose to dance. Figuratively, that is, because I have always been a terrible dancer.’’

   Now in his 70s, the St. Lawrence University grad endures with the same vigor he brandished 50 years ago.

   “One of the reasons that I work,’’ he said, “is so the newspaper can have the same relevance in Ogdensburg and its neighboring villages that it had in your wonder years.’’

    It’s a safe bet a Shea sighting will be happening soon on a ballfield near you.

             Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitw rite.com/blog/