Do You Believe in Miracles?

An Oral History of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team

Interviewer Alex de los Rios Interviewee Leonard Shapiro Table of Contents

Statement of Purpose

Biography

Historical Contextualization

Interview Transcription

Interview Analysis

Appendix

Bibliography Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this oral history project to is to provide a deeper understanding of the hockey game between the United States and the U.S.S.R. at the 1980 Olympics in

Lake Placid New York. The examination of the interview with Leonard Shapiro, who covered the game for the Washington Post, and the events surrounding the game, will provide for a better understanding on why the event was much more than just a hockey game.

Table of Contents Biography of Leonard Shapiro

Leonard Shapiro was born on February 2nd, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Syosset, Long Island and went to Syosset High School. After graduating from high school, Leonard went on to the University of Wisconsin where he majored in

Journalism. He then went on and got his Masters in Journalism from the University of

Missouri. Thinking that he was going to be a political reporter, he joined a program at the University that sent him to Washington to be a political correspondent for The

Washington Post. After he graduated, he returned to the Post and earned a job taking scores from local high school athletic teams. He eventually became a staff writer for the

Post.

In 1980 the Post sent him to Lake Placid, New York to cover the Olympics. He covered all of the games in which the U.S. Hockey team played during that time. He was the Washington Post correspondent at the game against the Soviets and his story was immortalized on a commemorative mug honoring the game. In the year 2000, Shapiro was named a Distinguished Graduate from the University of Wisconsin School of

Journalism.

Leonard Shapiro is currently a columnist for the Post and covers mostly the NFL and professional golf, and also writes Sports Waves, a weekly column on television and radio coverage of sports. He is married to Vicky Shapiro and three children, Jennifer,

Emily, and Taylor, ages 27, 23, and 14 respectively. Leonard Shapiro currently resides in the state of Virginia. Table of Contents A Time of Crisis: A History of the United States Before, During,

and After the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid

Bill Shirley, a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times, wrote: “It was West vs.

East, Capitalism vs. Communism, the good guys against the bad guys. The Final score was USA 4, USSR 3. The good guys won” (Shirley).1 After the game, fireworks lit up the sky as people danced in the streets chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.” (Eskenazi 50). When the U.S. team arrived at the White House the day after the Olympics, they were greeted by screaming fans that, among other things, hanged manikins dressed in the Soviet Red

(Marsella). One could ask how a hockey game could mean so much. However, sports have been known to impact more than just the sports world. Jesse Owens’ upset Hitler’s

“Master Race” during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin thereby debunking Hitler’s theory of white supremacy. In the 1968 Mexico games, in the heat of the Civil Rights movement, black track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised there fists and bowed their heads during the playing of their national anthem as a symbol for their black pride. The political statement was so bold that the two were stripped of their respective medals.

Sports can have an effect on the overall population of a country or the relationship between two rival nations. They can boost patriotism and shock the world. Because of the poor state of the United States and its several conflicts with other nations in 1980, the

Olympic Hockey game between the United States and Soviet Russia was one of those sporting events.

1 Refer to Appendix A for picture. After World War II, the two remaining superpowers of the world were the United

States and the U.S.S.R. Even though they were allies in the war, the two countries clashed drastically. Neither country could wholly agree on terms during the Yalta

Conference after World War II. Disputes stemmed from Russia’s desire to establish communist government in the liberated and defeated countries of Eastern Europe and the

United States’ opposition to this. The two finally agreed on terms that would allow the countries to hold free elections and elect their own government officials. The United

States was criticized after the conference when it was learned that Russia did not let countries such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, but rather, communist governments were established, non-communist parties were suppressed, and elections were held rarely. Moreover, problems arose from the simple fact that Russia was a communist country run by a dictatorship while the United States was based on capitalism and a democratic government. In 1949, the United States established the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with its European allies in an effort to contain the spread of communism in Europe.2 In retaliation to NATO, Russia and its allies established the Warsaw Pact (Schwartz 9).3 While the countries never fought each other directly, hence the term “Cold War,” the United States and Russia supported ideological causes in underdeveloped countries such as Afghanistan and Vietnam in order to spread their ideals and influence. Furthermore, both countries prepared for nuclear war by building up their respective militaries and constructing countless nuclear missiles.

However, in 1972, President Gerald Ford of the United States and the Soviet leader

2 Spain, France, Denmark, Belgium, and Great Britain were all part of NATO with other countries joining later on (Schwartz 9). 3 Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria were part of the Warsaw Pact either by choice or forced by the Soviets (Schwartz 9). Lenoid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I).4 The treaty put a ceiling on arms productions and stabilized the arms race (Hargrove 134). Throughout the 1970’s, it seemed as the Cold War was all but over as neither country did anything to threaten the other. Conflicts between the two countries were minimal if at all present when President James Earl Carter was elected in 1976.

When Carter went into office in 1977, he introduced programs to boost the economy, administrative and social reform. However, Carter was unable to get his ideas to be turned into legislation in congress and consequently, his popularity rating dropped.

Furthermore, the U.S. economy was in a dismal state. Inflation rose to 12% in 1980 and unemployment was up 7.5% the same year. Furthermore, volatile interest rates reached a high of 20% twice in 1980. In an effort to curb inflation, Carter asked Congress to place a 5% ceiling on federal pay raises. He also asked businesses to hold down wages.

However, more vigorous efforts were needed or the United States, and possibly the rest of the world, would fall into an economic crisis. Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda of Japan stated that if Carter did not lower inflation in the U.S., the world economy would be hurt drastically (Policy 186-87). Despite all his efforts, Carter was unable to lower inflation during his Presidency because of lack of commitment by businesses to meet his demands.

Seemingly the only positive side to Carter’s presidency was that he was able to maintain peace with the Soviets. However, on Christmas Day in 1979, the Soviets shocked Carter and the world when its forces mobilized and invaded Afghanistan.

The invasion of Afghanistan marked the first time since World War II that the

Soviet Army took up arms in a foreign land (Melanson 14). Furthermore, the invasion went against Brezhnev’s proposal for a détente, or peace program, between the United

4President Carter would sign and then later denounce the SALT II in 1979 (Haas 109). States and Russia (Hargrove 158). President Carter called the invasion “a grave threat to the peace” between the United States and Russia and that the Soviets had “blatantly violated international rules of behavior” (Gwertzman). Carter also noted that it was “no longer possible to do business as usual with the Soviets”(Haas 112). Carter reacted to the invasion by placing a trade embargo, suspending high technology sales to the Soviets, and boycotting the Summer Olympics in Moscow (Hargrove 155). Russia did not respond to Carter’s actions and Brezhnev kept the Russian army in Afghanistan in order to prop up the failing Communist regime in that country (Schwartz 114). Carter went on to retract the SALT II from consideration in Congress (Schwartz 114).5 Later, Carter’s closest aid said that the invasion changed Carter as a person. He said that it “toughened him and made him more forceful” (Hargrove 155). The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was probably the most suspenseful period of the Cold War since the Cuban Missile

Crisis. However, this was not the only crisis bothering Carter and his administration. A month earlier, radical Iranian students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, taking

66 hostages in the process (Schwartz 113).

The Iranian revolution started well before the embassy takeover but at the time,

Carter was pre-occupied with the effects of the Camp David Accords6 between Egypt and

Israel (Hargrove 137). The result of this was that the Carter administration did not receive much information on what was happening in Iran. Furthermore, the people in

Washington did not respect the Ayatollah’s Islamic vision.7 All this contributed to the shock experienced by the Carter administration when reports of the embassy take over

5 Carter said later that the failure of SALT II “was the most profound disappointment of my presidency” (Haas 112). 6 Camp David Accords was a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, which ended 28 years of fighting between the two countries (Schwartz 154). 7 Ayatollah Ruhallah Khoneini was a Muslim fundamentalist who was the leader of the Iranian revolution. arrived in Washington. However, the takeover should have not have been a surprise at all. It was really a retaliation by the Iranian students to the U.S. support of the Shah, the former governing body of Iran, which had been accused of crimes against the Iranian people (Haas 109). Hundreds of America hating Iranians burning flags and chanting anti-

American slurs (Haas 109). Carter reacted to the takeover by imposing an embargo on oil imports from Iran and asking the United Nations to condemn the takeover.8 However,

Carter’s plea to the U.N. failed due to a Soviet veto (Haas 110). The problem intensified when the Ayatollah was seen constantly on American T.V. calling Carter corrupt and a liar. Furthermore, he referred to the United States as “great Satan.” The crisis made

Americans feel outraged, frustrated, and feeling that the U.S. influence on the world was dying out. However, the crisis did boost Carter’s popularity rating, which was probably more a resemblance of the people’s hatred towards the Ayatollah rather than their approval for their president (Haas 110). The crisis in Afghanistan and Iran added to the inflation and high gas prices all carried over into the February of 1980 in which the

Olympics would be held in Lake Placid in upstate New York.

For the Second time in modern Olympic History, the games would be held in upstate New York. In 1980 the games were held in the tiny Adirondack Mountain village of Lake Placid. The beginning of the games reflected the state of the U.S. at the time.

The town, though having excellent sports facilities, was very poorly prepared for the games. Transportation was terrible throughout and athletes complained of the small size of the Olympic Village. In the hockey competition, the Soviets were favored heavily to win and were considered as overall the best Hockey team in the world. A year before, they embarrassed a group of NHL All-stars and won an NHL challenge cup series

8 This despite the fact that it would reduce the oil supply thus raising gas prices even further than before. (Eskenazi 1). They had won all but one Olympic gold medal since 1956 and had all but won the Gold medal in 1980 before the games even started (Eskenazi 2).9 The Soviets were amateurs in name alone. They played in their own Russian leagues, were paid by the Russian government, and most of the players had been on the team for at least ten years. Lastly, they had undoubtedly the best goalie in the world in Vladislav Tretiak, who would have been an instant star in the NHL if it were not for his government banning him from moving to the States (Marsella). Moreover, the Russian sports system restricted their athletes heavily so that all they would think about was their sport and winning. Players were allowed to see their families only occasionally, trained every day, all day, and were placed into this rigorous lifestyle just years after being born (Marsella).

The Americans were purely amateurs. All the players were straight out of college and barely old enough to shave. American Olympic programs were nowhere near as demanding as their Soviet counterparts. Players tried out for teams voluntarily and mostly all the time the players were playing their sport full time. Most athletes, especially those on the hockey team, were selected to their respective team because of the fact that they were the best in the country. However, most of them were not even close to being among the best in the world (Marsella). It was because of this that the American

Hockey team was not even thought of as a contender and was picked to finish 7th in the twelve team field (Golden). Furthermore, in order just to get into the medal round, the team had to beat two very strong teams in the Czechs and the Swedes. At the start of the

Olympics, people did not even notice that the U.S. had a hockey team (Marsella).

9 The Soviets lost the Gold Medal to the Americans in the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley, California (Eskenazi 2). Coach Herb Brooks, the Coach for the University of Minnesota and the last scratch from the 1960 U.S. team who won the gold medal, was assigned to Coach the

U.S. team at Lake Placid. He assembled the team 6 months prior to the game and it consisted basically of collegiate players from the Universities of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Boston (Marsella). Knowing that the rivalry that existed between the University of

Minnesota and Boston University could cause problems, Brooks decided that the only way his team would become united would be if they have one thing they can all agree on.

He decided that he would be the most abrasive coach his players had ever encountered.

He believed that if his players hated him more than they hated each other, they would learn to be friends and play as a single unit. The plan worked as the team was very successful in their 60-game pre-Olympic warm-up compiling and outstanding 42-15-3 record against world-class opposition (Marsella). However, two weeks before the

Olympics, the team faced the Soviet national team at Madison Square Garden in New

York. The Soviets humiliated the U.S. team 10-3. Furthermore, the U.S. players actually applauded the Soviets in the pre-game introductions because of how much they respected the Russians (Marsella).

When the Olympic field was made, the Soviets and the Americans were placed in the red and blue divisions respectively; this meant that they would not face each other until the medal round. The Americans opened with the Swedes, who were heavily favored to win the silver medal, and tied them 2-2 after defenseman Bill Baker tied the game with under a minute to play. The U.S. then stunned the Czechs, the bronze medal favorites, 7-3. The U.S. followed this by winning its next three games against Norway,

Romania, and West Germany and started to earn the spotlight of the nation. People were now calling the hockey team “America’s team” (Eskenazi 5). On the other side of the draw, the Soviets stormed through their division, winning all their games and outscoring their opponents 51-11. The Soviets would then play the United States in the first game of the medal round. The game started to draw national attention and Olympic officials considered moving the game to 8 o’clock and into primetime. The Soviets refused and forced the game to be played at 4 o’clock as previously scheduled. ABC, who was broadcasting the games, decided they would play the game on taped delay to be able to fit it into the primetime schedule (Marsella).

The Game was played on Friday February 22nd at 4:00 p.m. in front of a standing- room only crowd in the Lake Placid Ice Arena. Before the game, Coach brooks delivered

“the speech of a lifetime” and told his players “You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here.” The players took the speech to heart and started out very up beat.

“You didn’t just want to check a guy into the boards,” said goalie Jim Craig, “you wanted to check him through the boards” (Marsella). Despite the American’s fast start, the

Soviets scored first, 9 minutes into the first period. Five minutes later, Buzz Schneider tied the game for the Americans. The Soviets took the lead again a little under four minutes later (Eskenazi 83). The Soviets seemingly would go into the dressing room with a one goal lead as time started to run out in the first period. However, with just seconds remaining, Dave Christian took a desperation shot from behind the blue line, which Tretiak kicked away with his pad. The puck headed right towards Mark Johnson, who had chased it down the ice to the goal, he collected the puck and scored with no time left on the clock. After a lengthy review, the goal was allowed (U.S. Shocks). After the goal the Soviet coach, Victor Tikenoff, decided to replace the Soviet star goalie with Vladimir Myshkin for the rest of the game. Afterwards, Tikenoff explained that he felt that Tretiak was not playing well and may have been nervous.

The second period was dominated by the Soviets as they held the

Americans to just two shots and getting ahead 3-2 after scoring just two minutes in

(Eskenazi 83). However it was the only goal they could score. In the third period, the

Americans were on the power play when Mark Johnson scored his second goal of the game at 8:39. Just eighty-one seconds later, Mike Eruzione, whose name means

“eruption” in Italian, scored to put the Americans ahead with ten minutes left (U.S.

Shocks). People who witnessed or were at the game have said that the next ten minutes of hockey was the longest ten minutes they have ever experienced (Marsella). Jim Craig saved the team time and again with his spectacular saves. With a minute left the

Russians were in the U.S. end but refused to pull their goalie. The Americans were able to clear the puck from their zone with five seconds left as the crowd began the countdown

(U.S. Shocks). For those who watched the game on T.V., they heard Al Michaels shout arguably the most famous line in sports history. As time ran out Michaels asked the nation “Do You Believe in Miracles? Yes!” (Marsella). The Americans had pulled off what is considered by many the greatest upset in the history of sports. The celebrations lasted well after the game and poured out into the streets of Lake Placid. When asked if it felt like ecstasy to beat the Russians, Eruzione responded, “That’s not strong enough.

We beat the Russians. We beat the Russians” (U.S. Shocks).

What many people forget was that for the U.S. team to win the gold medal, they needed to beat Finland two days later. After starting out slow, the U.S. came back to beat the Finns, 4-2 and win the gold medal. This victory was followed by just as much celebration as after the game against the Soviets (Golden). In New York City, a family crowd quietly gathered to watch a production of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” at

Radio City Music Hall. The announcement was made that the U.S. team had just beat the

Finns and thus won the Gold medal. “The place just erupted,” said Patricia Robert, the spokesman for the Music Hall (Eskenazi 66). The celebration was the same all around the country. The people of the U.S. had something to cheer about.

Although it probably was not his intention, Al Michaels’ question described more than just the hockey game. The people of the United States were not in a good place.

They were suffering from inflation, high interest rates and gas prices, the fear of war with

Russia, and the constant reminder that Iranian students held their hostages in Tehran.

Vice President Walter Mondale said afterward, “America, I think, had began to wonder whether we’d lost our edge.” Sports journalist Dave Anderson later wrote, “America needed something to cheer about” (Eskenazi 1). Looking back on the game, Michaels said, “It really wasn’t a good time to be an American.” Simply put, America needed a miracle. The fact is that the game did not pull the Soviets from Afghanistan, it did not lower inflation, and it did not release the hostages. But what it did do was raise the hopes of millions of people around the country. The game boosted morale around the country and it was almost as if the game erased everything that was wrong with the world at the time (Marsella). After the game, the Los Angeles Times published a cartoon that depicted the U.S. Hockey players as the soldiers at Iwo Jima raising the American flag with a hockey stick. Furthermore, Sports Illustrated voted the hockey team Sportsmen of

The Year. The article, written by E.M. Swift, contained the header: At a time when international tensions and domestic frustrations had dampened

traditional American optimism, the underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team gave the

entire nation a lift by defeating the world’s top team, the Soviets, and ultimately

winning the gold medal. Those youngsters did so by means of the old-fashioned

American work ethic, which some people feared was disappearing from the land

(Swift, 30).

The article clearly showed that the game meant so much more than a victory for the U.S. hockey but, rather, it lifted the spirits of the entire country. Furthermore, 20 years afterward, the impact of the game is still felt. It was voted the greatest moment in sports by the editors of Sports Illustrated and the four team members from New England were voted number 18 of the top 100 New England sports figures of the century (Matson) 10.

In a time when the United States was in an economic crisis, had its embassy taken over in a hostile land, and was in a bitter Cold War with Russia, the greatest and, arguably, most important battle was won on a sheet of ice in the small town of Lake Placid in the

Adirondack mountains.

Table of Contents

10 Those four players were Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig, Jack O’Callahan, and Dave Silk. Interview Transcription

The following is the transcription of the interview of Leonard Shapiro, a Sports columnist for the Washington Post, regarding the 1980 Olympic hockey game between the United States and the U.S.S.R. and the events surrounding the game. The interview took place on December 12th at 7:00pm inside a Starbucks Coffee Shop on Wisconsin

Avenue in Bethesda, MD.

Alex de los Rios- I’m interviewing Len Shapiro over the 1980 Olympic Hockey game between the United States and the Soviet Union in which the United States won, 4-3. We are in a Starbucks Coffee Shop in downtown Bethesda. Really quickly, where did you grow up?

Leonard Shapiro- I grew up in Syosset, Long Island. S-Y-O-S-S-E-T. About thirty miles from New York City. Went to public school there through High School, Syosset High

School and went from there to the University of Wisconsin where I majored in

Journalism, then I went to the University of Missouri to get a Masters degree in journalism.

AR- How did you end up working at the Post? LS- Well the University of Missouri-I always thought I wanted to be a political reporter and the University of Missouri had a great program in Washington where you would come to Washington for a semester, about ten or twelve people, and they had a professor in residence hear who worked at the National Press Building at 14th and F streets and I was covering politics for about 6 or 7 newspapers around the country who used that service, we were stringers for those papers, we were their Washington correspondents.

So I go to Washington that way and I also had also just recently been married and needed a part time job and I went over to the Washington Post and they had an opening in Sports taking high school scores over the telephone and that’s how I started. I used to take high school scores over the phone from high school basketball managers or sports editors of their school papers and would give me enough information for a box score and a little two-paragraph story about that night’s game. So, that’s how I started and the more I did the better I got and the more assignments they gave me and when I got my degree and they hired me full time to cover high school sports.

AR- Getting back to the time of the game, what was your most vivid recollection of how it was before the game in the United States?

LS- Well, just to put everything into perspective, it was a time when the Cold War was certainly in full bloom and it was a real us against them mentality about the Russians and the Americans, U.S. versus the big Soviet Bear, and the country was sort of in a fever pitch over a lot of things, not just the a hockey game, but certainly the Iranians had taken the hostages, that was a very big issue, it was a very intense time in the country and this very much unknown hockey team, American hockey team, made up of college students primarily or guys who could barely make it into the NHL, or so we thought, was put together and started beating teams early in the competition. In that competition, the

Soviets were considered to be the odds on heavy favorites to win it, they were a veteran team, it was supposed to be all amateurs, everybody knew they were paid players, they paid in their own Russian leagues, they played together as the Red Army team, most of them, they had the greatest goalie in the world, Vladislav…whatever how you spell his name-Tretiak. They had unbelievable skaters, shooters, goaltenders and they have been playing together for about eight or ten years and they were the heavy, heavy favorites to win that game. Now as the Americans started to win game early in the competition to get into the medal round, they get there and now they are playing the Russians in the semi- finals. But the country was in a very patriotic mode, people were chanting “U.S.A.,

U.S.A.” in the arena, even against the earlier opponents, then it started to build a crescendo. The more they won, the more we wrote about them, the more we found out about all these interesting stories, particularly about Craig whose father was in the stands and just a real feel good story about a family and a kid who came from nowhere to become this overnight sensation, stopping things, as I like to say, standing on his head in the goal. He was just making save after save and then all of a sudden there confidence grew and now it’s time to play the Russians.

AR- You said the country was really patriotic, but how did you first feel when the

Iranians took over the embassy? LS- Well we were all not happy about it, I mean nobody wanted to see that. Did I want to go to war over it? Obviously not. You knew this was a political thing and you know there was a revolution going on in that country, we were all stunned to see there was this virulent anti-American feeling, that we had seen before, but certainly nobody had taken our hostages and kept them for a long time and they kept them for several months. They were also using it as a political ploy because the first day Ronald Reagan came into office in 1980 they let the hostages essentially go. So they were trying to make statement with

Jimmy Carter who was the president at the time. And so, I mean it was just that kind of an atmosphere where we were very proud to be Americans and you were proud of your country, you were proud we didn’t step in and attack them, although we tried, people didn’t find out about it until way after the fact. But it was a tense time, not as tense as it is now by any means, but still there was a lot of emotion about it all throughout the country.

AR- So you could never say that you lost faith in your country?

LS- Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! Nobody lost faith in the country. I think people were thinking how could this little dippy little country, Iran, that used to be our great ally when the Shah, who was a dictator that we sort of propped up for many years and a very wealthy dictator essentially, although he had did a lot of reforms and we started to tow the line a little had been overthrown and sent into exile, his whole family, and then these religious fanatics took over the country, changed everything, very strict, militant, Islamic law, very much the way the Taliban has been acting, although the Taliban took it to an even worse and higher or lower level depending on your point of view, but how could they embarrass the mightiest country in the world by holding our hostages and we seemingly, short of going in and sending the commandos in to get them out, which could have led to a real blood bath, most of us felt, I felt, but no nobody lost faith in the country we were just sort of embarrassed by it and angry…not embarrassed, we were angry, people were angry about it.

AR- On top of this, the Russians invade Afghanistan a little over a month later and Carter called this “A threat to peace”-

LS- A month after the hostages?

AR- Yeah, the hostages were in November, the invasion was in December. Did you fear war with the Russians?

LS- No, no. I mean, I knew that was a…no. But what the concern was that somebody would do something crazy. And who knows? Who knows whose got a bomb, who knows what they’re gonna do? But the longer that went on, the more it became obvious that that was Russia’s Vietnam. We got bogged down on Vietnam, a war we couldn’t win or we didn’t try to win. The Russian’s were facing the same kind of problems our guys sort of face now in trying to get Bin Laden. These guys know how to fight in the mountains, they know the territory, they know the terrain, and it was their Vietnam.

They eventually had to pull out with a lot of people dead and there are some people, in my mind, who still think that was a major reason that the iron curtain fell down. They were so weakened by that war and so much dissention at home about it, and so many dead soldiers, dead young Russian boys, and people there couldn’t figure out “What the hell are we there for?”

AR- There is a video on this, I don’t know if you saw it, “Do You Believe in Miracles?” on HBO and they interviewed Al Michaels and he said that, all this was happening and inflation was up, gas was up, and Al Michaels said “It wasn’t a good time to be an

American.” He said people felt kind of depressed, do you feel the same way?

LS- No, no. I didn’t feel that way at all. As I said I think we were a little bit embarrassed that these religious fanatics could do this to us and that was the embarrassment. I don’t think we were depressed, I mean yeah the economy was slowing but then people had

Reagan coming in he was an optimist, wasn’t my favorite president. But (pause) no I don’t think so at all and I think Reagan sort of played on that and eventually got the country feeling good about itself again. It was nothing to jump off a bridge for, and I don’t think a lot of people were, over that incident.

AR- Now moving on more to the game; personally, what did you think of Russia as a whole?

LS- The team? AR- Well, the country, the team, everything.

LS- Well, truth be told, my grandparents lived in Russia, and emigrated to this country in the early 1900’s in the face of all the pogroms. But I’ve always thought it was a great country, I thought they had great people, I thought their leadership was crazy, with some exceptions, obviously Stalin was a murdering, ruthless, dictator who would have crushed us if he had the chance, and Krusthev, all these hard-liners. I was tense, when I was growing up on Long Island we had air raids all the time, duck and cover, go under the desks. There was a threat of nuclear war, in 1963 with the Bay of Pigs, if you have seen that movie “13 Days,” I hope you have. But I didn’t harbor any animosity towards the

Russian people, I think you felt that their leadership was doing really silly things and keeping their people under strict censorship, you know, telling people where they can live, where they could work, tremendous amounts of drunkenness, alcoholism. They had some severe, severe, severe problems, but the Russian people I always thought were hearty, brave, they basically won the war against Hitler when they stood at Stalingrad and turned them back and then throw them back toward eastern Europe, back toward

Germany and defended their country as courageously as anybody has ever defended their country. So I had no problem with the Russians, I didn’t like their system, I didn’t like their sports system by any means. I thought they took kids literally out of their mother’s wombs, they juiced them up with steroids, they put them in institutes where they were almost prisoners of their sports, to get the best athletes possible to win these competitions but I certainly didn’t have ill feelings toward the Russian people. AR- That’s actually the opposite if what I thought because it seems as though, through my research, it was people hated a Russian, their guts. So you didn’t hate a Russian person you just hated the way that their government worked?

LS- No I didn’t hate the Rus-No! I just hated the system, I didn’t like the system. I thought the system brutalized people, the KGB killed people, they were like the Gestapo, they spied on us, but I think most people, most Russian people, the common man, loved

America and as it turned out many of them tried to get the hell out of there and come to

America and still are coming to America. So no, I don’t think most of the American people hated the Russian people, they hated the government, they hated the system.

AR- So what was your vision of our two teams contrasting, the Russian team versus the

American team?

LS- Well, as I said earlier, our guys were kids, I think I wrote in one story “peach fuzz kids” because some of them didn’t even shave at that point. They were young, they were inexperienced, they played college hockey, there were some very good players on the team. I went to Wisconsin, Mark Johnson was on that team, his father had been the coach of the previous Olympic team in ’76, Bob Johnson, he was a friend of mine,

“Badger Bob” we used to call him, Wisconsin Badgers, he was a great player. But as it turned out they had a lot of great players, Ken Morrow went out and played, had a long career with the Long Island Islanders, there are about seven or eight guys on that team who had very distinguished careers in the pros, but they were in the early stages and the way the American system worked a that time was that there were not a lot of Americans in the NHL, there still are not a hell of a lot of Americans in the NHL, but they were good college players, but they had never played this kind of competition, they also had a terrific coach, a guy named Herb Brooks who had been from the University of

Minnesota, he was the perfect coach for that team, he was a little nuts, he was a task master, he made them work their rear ends off the first day they got together. They had a very interesting schedule, they must have played about seventy or eighty games, they played the equivalent of an NHL schedule up to the Olympics, including a game against the Russians at Madison Square Garden that, if I’m not mistaken, the final score might have been 15-2? You can look that up.

AR- I think it was 10-3.

LS- 10-3? Okay. They got killed. I mean just flat out crushed. Which, as it turns out, was something that Brooks was able to use as a motivational tool as the team kept progressing into the medal round.

AR- When was the first time you really started to take notice of the team, saying “Hey, these guys are pretty good.”

LS- Well, they struggled in some of their early game if I’m not mistaken, I have not gone back and looked, but there were a couple of close in some of the early games. There was a tie against (pause) Sweden? Okay. Which is a pretty good team obviously, but they were showing signs of, not greatness, but they were showing a lot signs they could play, but, as again, as they started to pile these things up, you know they had a pretty good record, we were writing every day about them, you’re learning the personalities, and you started to sense that there may be something special. I think there was a game against

Czechoslovakia, which had a very good team at the time, and they beat the Czechs.

There was a game against a pretty good German team, they beat the Germans. I don’t know what the order was, but, in any case, as it kept snowballing, we started to figure out that we had something special. Now let me also add, there was a lot of other stuff going on at the games. This is a very small town, Lake Placid, New York, the high school was the speed skating track. There’s a guy named Eric Heiden, who was winning gold medal after gold medal that was a great story. Most of us, most papers in 1980 did not send a lot of reporters to the Olympics, we do now, in part because of what happened in 1980, but it wasn’t really that popular, particularly the winter Olympics. So I was not only covering hockey, I was having to write about Eric Heiden, I was having to write some stuff about figure skating, I had to write about some of the ski races. But when they got into the medal round, I think that’s when all of us started to say, “Hey, we got something here,” and then we started to bang the drums for the Russians, the Russian game, and everybody wrote, “We have no chance.”

AR- So nobody thought there was-

LS- Nobody. AR- Nobody?

LS- Nobody! You know I don’t think they thought. The only guys who thought they could do it were them. And I’m not sure they were sure about it.

AR- When do you think the country started to jump on this team, for them to become

America’s team?

LS- I would say after they clinched a spot in the medal round. I think there were four games right, in the quarterfinals? Once you made it into that group, that’s when the country started to take notice, the other games were, essentially, preliminary games, sort of like the World Cup qualifying now, where, you know, the American team qualified, that’s a big thing, now we’re in the World Cup, if they start winning a game or two and sort of move into the standings, people get excited. But certainly there was no buzz, I mean no buzz, about the U.S. Olympic hockey team when they first arrived in Lake

Placid, none, and mostly because of the 10-3 loss to the Russians. If they got a bronze people would have been happy.

AR- So what was it like going into the game against the Russians? I could imagine it was pretty good.

LS- Well we were all pretty juiced, you know, it was a big deal. You know there are hundreds and hundreds of reporters at an Olympics, not as many in the winter as in the summer, but still hundreds. They were playing in a little, dinky, little arena in town that probably sat around seven or eight thousand. There was not a really big press box, there was not a huge amount of space, so tickets were limited. You literally had to fight tooth and nail to get a seat in the press box, the bigger papers, obviously, they accommodated so that was not a problem for me, but I can vividly remember just sitting there before the game, everybody was kind of excited, everybody was chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A.” And a friend of mine, a guy name David Israel, who was the columnist for the Washington

Times, excuse me, the old Washington Star, which was still alive at the time, was a sports columnist, a young guy, and he got up and yelled out across press row, and we were sort of up high, pretty close to where Al Michaels was, he yelled out, there’s an old expression amongst sports writers: “There’s no cheering in the press box.” If you cheer in the press box go out in the stands. That’s a place with people are working, it’s a working atmosphere, you want quiet, you don’t want people yelling when somebody scores a touchdown, or scores a goal. Israel got up and said, “Guys, we’re gonna suspend the rules tonight. There will be cheering in the press box.” That was sort of the feeling, and now, most of the guys and a couple of women who were covering the game, we’re all professionals, and we were all Americans and how could you not feel good when you saw that the Russians were a little bit off, the Americans were sky high, going through the roof, doing things they had never done before, and when the game started we scored a goal they scored a goal, I forget the scoring, how it went, but it was very close the whole time. Tretiak was not standing on his head, he looked very ordinary that night, I don’t know if he was sick, that’s never come. And then, the Russian coach did the

Americans great favor, he pulled Tretiak! He pulled the greatest goalie in the history of the game, in my mind. He was, I mean there was no question. I had seen him play for several years and I was a goaltender myself, I used to play hockey and play goalie, so I really appreciated what he did. This guy was unbelievable. In that game he was not.

And the coach, bad mistake, pulled him. I think the Russian players started to think that that was a little bit of a panic attack. They started to lose a little confidence. The

Americans saw that they had knocked out the mighty Tretiak, that jacked them up a little bit, and I think that it had a real important effect on the game.

AR- While all this is going on, when did you actually start to think, “Maybe they can win this thing.”

LS- (pause) Who scored the winning goal, Eruzione?

AR- Yeah.

LS- Not until he scored the goal.

AR- Really, so-

LS- How much time was left, three minutes?

AR- It was about ten minutes. LS- When Eruzione scored, I almost jumped through the roof celebrating, and the whole place went nuts. Now that team is riding on total emotion, total adrenaline. They are now David and David has just hit Goliath with a rock right in the middle of his head and

Goliath is about to go down. And they could sense, the Russians could sense it, and the whole arena sensed it and it was an all American crowd. Everybody in the crowd was rooting for the Americans. Even if you happened to be from the Swedish bobsled team, you were rooting for the Americans, no question.

AR- All right, I’m going to play a little audio real quick and tell me your reaction.

I Played an audio clip from the game, which goes as follows:

Al Michaels-..dumping it in to the American end again. Morrow is back there, now

Johnson. 19 seconds. Johnson over to Ramsey. Letinov gets checked by Ramsey.

McClannahan is there, the puck is still loose. 11 seconds! You got 10 seconds! The countdown going on right now! Morrow up to Shultz, 5 seconds left in the game!

Color Commentator- It’s Over!

AM-Do you believe in miracles!?! Yes! (crowd noise until the end of the clip)

AR-So what do you remember? How did you feel when the buzzer sounded?

LS-Everybody just-I mean, it’s one of those goose bump moments in your life, I’ve had plenty of them as a sports writer. Those were the biggest goose bumps I ever had. But you also have to understand, that my adrenaline was going for another reason. The game started at what time? AR- 4 p.m.

LS- Yeah, I had a deadline at seven o’clock, or seven thirty, and I don’t even remember when it ended. I remember when it ended, obviously, it was dark, and my main concern was getting my story in to the paper. Doesn’t do any good if you’re there and covering if you don’t write your story. So, my adrenaline was pumping just typing out the story. As soon as the game ended, I ran downstairs looking for players. And I knew several of them were going to the ABC truck, or studio, which was right behind us. So I went out in the middle of the night, it was freezing ass cold as I recall, and I some how tracked down

Eruzione, and I found him, I did a quickie interview, a couple of quotes, you, “What was going through your mind,” you know it was cold, he was sweating, he was trying to get somewhere, but I don’t even remember what he said, and maybe you can tell me from the story. But, I quoted him, I remember quoting him. I’m pretty sure I quoted him and then

I had to dash back. Then they had a press conference for a later edition, I went back and re-did the story. So my mind was the paper, the paper, the paper, but I knew what I had just seen was certainly the greatest upset in Olympic history. Greatest upset, no question in my mind, for all the reasons we’ve been talking about, and I knew I had to write this special. I really was proud of what I did that night. It later got re(laughs), I had a friend who was a printer who, I still have it, put out commemorative mugs with my story on the mug and my name on the mug, which I still have. You just knew you were part of history and you wanted to do the best you could ever do in your life to make this thing come alive for people who looked at the paper in the morning, and probably coming home from work that day and never even saw the game, or heard the score and didn’t know anything about it. Yeah I was thrilled for them, how could you not root for that team, as an American, but you try not to cloud it and you do the best you can, but it was a great night in my career.

AR- Did you catch any of Eruzione’s emotion through his quickie interview? I know you didn’t talk to him much but.

LS- Sure, you had to, he was laughing, he was crying, how could you not be? You scored the winning goal to beat the Russians and nobody ever heard of you, you weren’t good enough ever to play professional hockey later. He was the oldest guy on the team, he was the team captain, sure he was emotional and I hope I got it in the story, you know

I haven’t read that story in, well, 21 years.

AR- What can you tell me about Herb Brooks? Because throughout the tournament he was really stone cold and you told me he was a drillmaster and when you see the tape you see him celebrating. Do you remember anything about him?

LS- He was, but he also knew that was the semi-finals, he had another game to play. He had a very tough game to play and he had to win the gold medal. And Brooks also knew, as a very experienced coach, that you have a big, huge, emotional victory, there can be tendency to let down in your next game. Even though it was for the gold medal, most

Americans, I bet you to this day, if you asked them would tell you, “Yeah we beat the Russians to win the gold medal that year.” We did, sorta, but we had to be another team,

Finland, a day or two later, to really win a gold medal. And he knew that, and I think he tried to-, I mean he was thrilled, that’s a game that marked him as the greatest Olympic hockey coach in Olympic history and marked him in history as a Hall of Famer, really, for what he did with that team.

AR- What do you think would have happened if we lost to Russia?

LS- (Long pause) Depends on how bad we lost. If the Russians had scored that last goal instead of Eruzione, I think the American public still would have embraced this team and would have been very proud of their effort against enormous odds and the best team really did win, we had our chances to win. That’s if we had lost. If it had been 12-2, I think it would have been the same way. Well, let’s give these guys a hand, now let’s go out and win the bronze because we can beat the other teams.

AR- So you don’t think that if they had lost to the Russians or the Finns people would just have written it off and forgotten about it?

LS- (Long pause) If they had lost it would not be remembered the way it is now. But, at the time, that team would have been still given parades, they still would have given the visit to the White House, still would have gotten their just rewards, and people would have been very proud of their effort to get to that point. Because even at the start of the tournament they weren’t supposed to even make the medal round. That’s how, not bad they were, that’s how nobody knew how good they were or nobody knew anything about them.

AR- What can you tell me, if you can remember, about the celebrations after the game?

LS- I can’t tell you much and I’ll tell you why. I was writing my story. I didn’t get out of that arena until 11:30 or 12 o’clock at night. The only celebration I saw afterwards were the fans in the stands going crazy, the “U.S.A.”, the flags, Jim Craig pointing to his father, going out in the stands. The fans didn’t leave the arena and then outside to the parking lot to follow Eruzione to the ABC truck. People were just going nuts, chanting, beeping horns. Sort of like when Maryland beat N.C. State to make the BCS Bowl11.

Everybody sort of poured out onto the streets and everybody was very excited. I would imagine that the bars were…a lot of drunk people out on the street that night, a lot of anti-freeze consumed, and people were very happy. It was a great thing, it was not only front page, Sports page, it was top of the page Sports page, but there were banner headlines on the front, front, front pages of, I would say, every major newspaper in

America, the story of this team.

AR- On the whole world grand-scale the game didn’t do anything, it didn’t pull the

Russians out of Afghanistan, it didn’t get our hostages free, it didn’t lower the inflation, why did people care?

11 College Football game played on November 11, 2001 in which Maryland beat N.C. State 23-19 to earn a berth in the Orange Bowl. LS- Bottom line here is it was a game. It was a game on a world stage, it made no difference in terms of the Russians doing anything different, politically, it made no difference in the way we did, it did make the country feel great and proud, and maybe some people might have been, as I said earlier, a little embarrassed, feeling a little low, if you can say that about an entire country, I don’t think that’s true. It certainly perked up the spirits of the American public for a long time, because there were so many wonderful stories and because of the game itself, the American team won the gold medal at the winter Olympics, on American soil, at a tense period in our history.

AR- There was a quote from a movie that said “It wasn’t they beat the Russians, it was we beat the Russians.” Do you think that was the feeling?

LS- Absolutely. It’s like when the Redskins win, it’s not the Redskins won, “We won yesterday.” People take teams to their bosom and this team was particularly lovable, and particularly soft and fuzzy and wonderful stories everywhere you looked on the team, including the crazy coach, and people identified with them, people started to where jerseys, they started to where U.S.A. caps, they started to where red, white, and blue. I’m not going to say it touched off a New Year’s Eve celebration around the country for days and weeks, but the country was intrigued by this team, wanted to know more and more and more about it. When the games ended they still wanted to know more. There have been magazine stories, newspaper articles, books written about this, documentaries, films, it runs the gamut. Karl Malden playing Herb Brooks in a movie12, it was a big deal.

AR- Do you think the game changed the country at all, the way things happened and worked?

LS- Not one iota.

AR-Not at all?

LS- Not one iota. It allowed people to feel a little bit better about (pause) I don’t know how to describe the feeling. I don’t think anybody changed the way they lived because the Americans won a hockey game. I think it put a little jump in your step, maybe you held your head a little bit higher, people enjoyed talking to each other on airplanes about it, it was a constant subject of conversation several weeks before, during, and after and it just gave people a good feeling. Just like any sporting event normally does.

AR- This a picture from the L.A. Times it has the hockey players raising the American flag with a hockey stick.

LS- You know what that symbolizes?

AR- Yeah, Iwo Jima.

12 The movie was “Miracle on Ice” from 1989 which documented the story of the team. LS- I think that’s a little overboard. Maybe I’m just a little jaded (pause) I think that goes way overboard. They won a game, they won a game. They won a great game, they played great but, they didn’t win a war. In fact I think that’s insulting to the guys at Iwo

Jima, quite frankly, I think it’s insulting. Because those guys, I don’t know if you’ve read that book, I suggest you do, it’s called “Honor Thy Father” it’s about that picture and how it came to be and about all the guys in that picture and what happened to them.

Fascinating book, which I would recommend to you. That [picture] dishonors them in my mind.

AR- You don’t think it was as HUGE as people-

LS- It was huge but not in terms of changing the way people went about their business, in terms of the way the government changed it’s policies. No, people just were happy about it and thrilled and took great pride in it, as we all should have, but Army recruitment didn’t jump, guys weren’t going to join up and go off to war. They won a hockey game and that’s all it was. It was a great hockey game, a great performance, a great story, but not a life-altering event. It did alter a lot of their lives, it clearly altered all of their lives, but it did not alter the life of the average Joe who watched it on ABC that night.

AR- If, in any way, how do you think the game changed the way are today?

LS- In no way. AR- No way at all?

LS- Here’s the only way. It changed people in the 1984 Olympics, which I also covered, and the ’88 Olympics, paid a lot more attention to the U.S. Hockey team. But that’s all.

And people were very disappointed when those teams, I don’t think, made the medal round in either one of those games. In fact, I’m not sure they have ever since.

Everybody was rooting in 1984, in Yugoslavia, it was in Sarajevo, for another “Miracle

On Ice”13. There was no miracle, they weren’t that good, it was a different team, professionals started to skate in these things in the early 90’s, and that changed the whole dynamic of it. Because it wasn’t just amateurs, especially American amateurs. No, I don’t think it had any impact today except it made those guys a lot of money, a lot of notoriety, and stamped them as heroes in the minds of the American public, but again I would say the heroes are not the American hockey team, and this is me talking, I’m sure other people would disagree, the heroes are the guys who went out and gave their lives in

Vietnam.

AR- You think you could ever see something like this again?

LS- I hope I will. That was just a really convergence of circumstances at the time, when everything sort of came together. And there have been wonderful, wonderful Cinderella stories, not of that magnitude. I’ll tell ya, we did see it again. We saw it again a little bit when the U.S. Women’s soccer team won the World Cup. You would see it again if the

13 Term used for the U.S. victory at Lake Placid. American [Men’s] soccer team, which is always a huge underdog, if they did some damage early and got into the medal round14 of the World Cup. Sure you would see, it’s us against the world. And then, if we ever, god forbid, had to play Afghanistan, you would really see something. A bunch of guys with-. No I won’t say it (chuckles).

AR- The thing is, I have a friend and he heard I was doing this, he said it was really cool and he loves the game and my history teacher told me about his experience and how when he was a kid and he was so emotional when it happened, why do you think people take it to that next level?

LS- Everybody has to root for something, we all admire people, we all have role models, we all have heroes. I was a kid growing up in New York and bled Dodger and Brooklyn

Dodger Blue, and Duke Snyder and Roy Camponella, and Johnny Padres, all those guys.

Because you admire their skills, we admire the way most of the conduct themselves, some of them don’t, they’re the best of the best, and we try to compare ourselves to them in our own skills. I always thought I could hit the ball as well as Roy Camponella did, as you get older you realize, “Wait a minute, there’s a weeding out process here. There’s a reason these guys are playing Major League Baseball and there’s a reason I’m writing about it.” But Americans have always had heroes, people all around the world have had heroes, whether it was Jesus Christ, Moses, Bin Laden is a hero to millions of people over there. That’s just human nature.

14 NOTE: Olympic tournament format is different from that of World Cup Soccer. AR- Obviously my view of the game, coming into this, was different from yours. Why do you think people have taken it so far, I know people consider these people heroes, like you said, why do you think people take it so far to think “This is what won the Cold

War,” almost.

LS- Do you think that?

AR- I don’t think it won the Cold War.

LS- I’m going to say it again, it was just a hockey game. It had no global implications other than it made Americans feel good about themselves and about their country and about these kids and I would say within six months that faded. It lingered probably longer than most of these kind of events do. Look at the Yankees, what the Yankees did to get to the seventh game of the World Series, this year, in the wake of the World Trade

Center bombings and all that, that whole city, in fact the whole country was rooting for the Yankees to win that world series. To help the city start to feel good again, but now we’re to months away from it, who gives a hoot? It fades, the memory fades. In fact, the next week was when they announced that they were going to contract by two teams, and the memory totally faded because people were so pissed off at baseball.

AR- Do you think sports can have an impact on politics and change the world in a way? LS- I think sports can have an impact on politics or can change things in the world. A couple of examples, real easy examples: until a guy from Washington named Lee Elder went to South Africa as the first black golfer to play in South Africa, on a white man’s course, that was a great moment in apartheid history, not a great moment but it was significant step, not the significant step, but a step in sort of starting to erode that god awful racist, crazy policy. Arthur Ashe becoming the first black man to win Wimbledon,

I think opened the door for a lot of young black kids to start playing tennis. Tiger

Woods, what he’s done at such an early age, win the masters at 21, winning 3 at 23, 3 majors, has opened up the world of golf to not the country club set and not the rich people, but has gotten, literally, hundreds of thousands of kids playing a sport that was only thought to be an elitist country club sport. So sure, sports can have an impact.

Absolutely, there was a basketball game at the 1980 summer Olympics, the Russians and the Americans, ’76 or ’80?

AR- I’m not sure, it might have been ’76.

LS- ’76 in Montreal?

AR- Yeah that’s it.

LS- Where everybody thought the Russians cheated. They got a couple of extra seconds on the clock when the game should have expired with us winning. With those extra seconds they sank a basket, a miracle basket, that’s the first time we had ever lost in basketball, the sport we invented in this country. That pissed a lot of people off, I mean that really pissed a lot of people off. Because of what happened, “The cheating

Russians” that kind of thing. The system, the Russian system, prevails again. Sure there have been sporting events that have shaped certain things. The classic example, the 1936

Olympic games in Germany, in Munich. Where Hitler was coming into his own, the

Nazi party had taken over the country. Excuse me, it was the ’32 Olympics with Jesse

Owens, in Berlin. And Jesse Owens won four gold medals, which sort of shattered the

Arian, ethnic, purity, “how could a black man ever win four gold medals against our

Arian athletes. Well, he kicked their ass is what he did. And that had a great impact and it showed the Nazis for what they really were. There was an incident where a guy named

Marty Glickman, a very famous broadcaster, who also was a great sprinter and football player, played for the New York Giants but was a world-class sprinter. A Jewish kid from Brooklyn, was not allowed to compete in those Olympics because Hitler went to

Avery Brundage, the head of the International Olympic Committee and said “We don’t want any Jews in here” and Brundage was an anti-Semite to begin with, that had a great impact on Jewish people in this country. The Olympics in 1972 in Munich, 8 Israeli athletes killed in a terrorist attack, tell me about that. Directed by Arafat. Really was the first time people in this country saw people in hoods and guns on balconies at an Olympic village. That had a huge impact on future events. So, yes! Sports can have a great role.

AR- What’s the difference between this game and Jesse Owens upsetting the “Master

Race.” LS- The difference was that the Russians never said “We’re going to crush the American pigs,” there was none of that, there was no woofing back and forth. It just showed up their theory of racial superiority and Arian superiority and it sent a message to the world,

“Hey, what this guy Hitler says about the only pure beings on this earth are Arian beings, blonde, blue eyed, and German, was bull-shit. Because his guys were getting beat all over the place, particularly by black Americans and, sadly, not enough Jewish

Americans.

AR- This might be a little stretch, but do you think that the whole 1976 basketball game carried over into this hockey game or was it even in their mind?

LS- Well yeah. We thought we were cheated and any time you had a U.S. versus Russia in anything, it was a big deal, if it was in volleyball, it became a big deal because passions on both side of the ball were higher than normal because we were enemies in the

Cold War, there were tensions between our countries, there was pressure on the athletes from their officials to go out and beat the crap out of us, to show people that the Russian system worked better than the way our system worked, and there was always animosity.

But we weren’t the only one, go back and look at the ’56 Olympics there is a very famous

Olympic event in water polo when the Russians played the Hungarians and the Russians had invaded Hungary to quell a rebellion that was going to knock out he Communist government, in fact there was a very famous book called “Blood on the Water” written about it. There were passions inflamed, not just between us and the Russians, but there were always passions any time anybody played Germany, post-war there were passions.

Or even in the ’32 and ’36 Olympics.

AR- Say hypothetically the Russians completely dominate the Olympics and we get blown out, just destroyed, how do you think people would have took it?

LS- In 1980?

AR- Yeah.

LS- They would have been upset. At that point most of the American media had written stories, everybody knew what their system was. They went after great athletes a very early age, 6-7 years old, if a kid could jump three steps instead of just one, you made him a high jumper. That’s how micro managed it was and I think people resented that system in this country because our heroes came from Little League, our heroes came from Pee-

Wee football leagues, our heroes came from High School and College Football. So, hypothetically, if that had happened, there would have been people upset about it.

AR- So you think that if that had happened people would have been upset, but they would have been more like “Oh it’s the system, it’s not the athletes fault.”

LS- Yeah! They would have realized what we were up against. Like our swimming teams against the East Germans in those times during the Cold War. All our athletes knew all their athletes were taking stuff to make them bigger, stronger, faster. Most of the women looked like men they had taking so many steroids, some of them were almost growing beards. Same thing with a lot of the Russian track stars, all put in these institutes, fed things that the athletes had no idea and said they had no idea what they were at the time, they were just told “Vitamins, this is gonna make you feel better, this will help you run faster, this will give you more oxygen in your blood so you can run a longer distance faster.” People here resented that. Which is not to say we didn’t do some of it ourselves, and still do.

AR- Did it ever feel to you that it had come to a point during the Cold War that it was us versus Russia, that it was intense, that it was almost war in sports?

LS- Yeah absolutely, particularly in world stages. In Olympics, in World Cups, in international basketball, yes. It was very intense, we wanted to beat them, they wanted to beat us and it always made for great television. That’s why everybody says the ratings for the Olympics have gone down over the last few years because there’s not that “us against them” anymore. We’re friends, they’re one of our closest allies now, there’s not hatred, there’s not animosity. I mean everybody wants to beat each other for national pride and bragging rights, but it’s not as serious. And I think that’s a good thing. AR- I don’t remember if you said that you saw the HBO special15 but there was a line where Mike Eruzione said he received a telegram from a lady that all it said was “Beat those commie bastards.” Did you ever feel that way?

LS- No, no, no! I didn’t feel that way and maybe it’s because I’m a liberal Democrat and some people in my own family were Socialist in the 30’s and 40’s. Which was the way a lot of Jewish immigrant, my grandparents and even my parents were involved. No, I never wanted to kill a commie bastard. I never felt that way, I always looked at people who felt like that way were a lot of un-educated people who took the us versus them a little bit too far. Way too far.

AR- There was an article in one of the books that I read about how the Russians had to come in and they had a cop car in front, a cop car in behind them, and they had security on the bus, and KGB agents, do you think they went a little bit overboard?

LS- Well I think they did that for a lot of reasons. The Russians were always, and even the Chinese and the Cubans over the last forty or fifty years, under that repressive system, were always concerned that people were going to defect. So yeah, the had KGB guys on the buses and they had people in the hotel, their athletes were very closely guarded by those people. They were not allowed to go out on the town a lot, they were very restricted. I don’t think that was done to prevent a guy from pulling out a gun and shootin ‘em. I think it was done to keep their own people from revolting.

15 “Do You Believe in Miracles”: The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team. AR- I’ve been dying to ask you this, referring back to the game and everything that happened, do you believe in miracles?

LS- Yeah after watching that game I certainly do. I’ve always believed in miracles. I’ve always believed you play the game because those things can happen. I was an athlete in

High School, played a little college baseball, you know that there are days that major, major under dogs rise up and something happens, the other guys are not playing very well, you’re playing at the absolute peak of your ability, that’s why you play games, that’s why you play them. If you thought something was a walkover and didn’t play it, what fun would that be? You play the game, probably eight or nine out of ten times the underdog is going to get beaten or even crushed by the superior team. Just look at the

NFL this year,16 how many bad teams have beaten how many good teams? Detroit is 0-

12 right now, I guarantee ya they’re gonna win a game and it might be against a playoff contender. It can happen and that’s why you play.

AR- Thank you very much.

LS- My pleasure.

AR- It was an honor.

LS- Good questions.

16 2001-2002 season After the interview, Leonard Shapiro and myself started having a conversation and what it was like in Lake Placid came up. I felt it was good material for the interview and asked

him if he could repeat himself on tape.

AR- So what was it like in Lake Placid?

LS- Lake Placid (pause) was not a pleasant place to hold an Olympics. It was in the dead of winter, it was freezing ass cold, we were getting gauged everywhere, in the hotels, in the houses that some news organizations rented, you’d pay sixty dollars for a spaghetti dinner. The people of upstate New York knew they had pigeons who couldn’t go anywhere, who were captive audience and they gauged us unmercifully. Quite frankly, the first seven or eight days of the Olympics it was more surviving in the cold and not getting your pocket picked by the local merchants than it was worrying about if somebody was going to win a ski race. And you worried about freezing to death because the buses didn’t work. That was a huge story, in the first four or five days in the

Olympics. The bus system did not work, they couldn’t get people to events, people were stranded for hours in the freezing cold, people were furious, there was that kind of an atmosphere there too, not so much towards the Russians, or anybody else, but toward the people who were running the Olympics. It all got better at the end, we win the gold medal against Finland, on the last weekend of the games and everybody has this wonderful, joyous memory. I remember the first ten days. It was not fun.

AR- All right, thanks again. LS- No problem.

Table of Contents Interview Analysis

History has always been a group of stories passed down from generation to generation. As time passes, that history becomes slightly modified or interpreted in a way that the original message is slightly skewed. History is subject to constant criticism and interpretations depending on the group of people looking at it and the time period.

Oral history is even more subject to this sort of interpretation and criticism. It is crucial to further understand the emotions and experiences the people went through at different points in time. However, it can also present serious problems to people trying to further understand their past. There are times when a persons view on a subject verifies a historians argument or point of view, but there are also times when that particular person can present a point of view completely different than historians’. Other times, the person reciting the history could be outright lying or be so jaded that their vision on historical events could be completely different than what is documented in historical texts.

Essentially, oral history is the simplest form of history. One person telling a story for somebody else to interpret and analyze. Whether or not this agrees with other interpretations of that particular event depends on the person and how they interpreted what happened. This is exactly the case with Leonard Shapiro and his interpretation of the 1980 Olympic hockey game between the United States and the U.S.S.R. Textbooks, documentaries, and even newspapers of the time depicted the game as a savior to the

American people. They depicted early 1980 as a time of serious depression and low self- esteem throughout the country and that the game revitalized the country as a whole. The main source that is responsible for most, if not all, of the dramatization of the game was the HBO documentary “Do You Believe in Miracles: The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey

Team.” Shapiro’s comments did not argue with the points made in the HBO documentary, but they were not as dramatized. Therefore, this interview is crucial in understanding the events surrounding the hockey game between the United States and the

U.S.S.R. because it gives a point of view that is a more realistic perspective of what happened than that of the media surrounding the event.

During the interview, Leonard Shapiro started by speaking briefly about his child hood and how he ended up working at the Washington Post. He then went on to talk about how life was like before the game. He mentioned the crisis in Iran and Shapiro emphasized that, while embarrassed, he did not feel people in the United States were depressed about the event and he especially stressed that he never lost faith in his country. When talking about the Russians invading Afghanistan, Shapiro stated quite frankly he did not fear that the invasion would lead to war. Furthermore, Shapiro also stated that he didn’t hate the Russian people. He felt that the Russian people were proud, resilient, and he respected them. The aspect of Russia that he did not approve of was the system that oppressed and tortured it’s people. He also did not like how the Russian sports system worked and stated that he thought the rest of the country felt the same way.

Shapiro went on to talk about the Olympics and how people first started to take notice of the American team. He felt that nobody knew the team because they were just college kids and nobody gave them a real chance. He went into depth about how the United

States team and the Soviet team contrasted. Shapiro emphasized how good the Russian team was and how young and unknown the American team was. When the American team started to win, however, he saw that people really started to take notice and that prospective game with the Russians became more publicized. Furthermore, as the team became more popular, Shapiro noted that the individual stories, such as the one he mentioned about Jim Craig looking for his father in the stands, captivated the nation.

Shapiro went on to the actual game and expressed how much he appreciated the fact that he was seeing something special and that when the U.S. team won it was one of the most exciting times of his life. He also had a small anecdote about how he could not celebrate very much because he had a deadline and needed to finish his story and send it to the

Post. He then added how most people forget that the Americans needed to beat the Finns, which they did, to win the gold medal. Shapiro then was clear to state that it was just a game and it did not change anything in the world. He said that while sports can have an impact on the world, he gave examples such as Jesse Owens, he did not feel that this hockey game was one of those moments. He felt that it was a great sports moment that made people around the country feel really good, but the matter of fact was that the game did not change the world. Shapiro finished the interview by referring to the famous Al

Michaels’ quote and stating that he believed in miracles after watching that hockey game.

He added that it is because of moments like that that people play sports. Shapiro then quickly added how much he hated his stay at Lake Placid and he criticized the people of the town and the transportation, saying that those incidents left him with a sour feeling.

During his interview, Leonard Shapiro made it very clear that the way people felt at the time was not as bad as it was depicted in sources, such as “Miracles,” that depicted life at the time. He emphasized that people where not depressed about the economy. “I don’t think we were depressed, I mean yeah the economy was slowing but then people had Reagan coming in he was an optimist… It was nothing to jump off a bridge for” (de los Rios 20). Shapiro did feel that people were not feeling excellent, but he also didn’t feel that they were depressed. Furthermore, when he talked about the hostage crisis in

Iran, Shapiro seemed to have seen it in the same light. “…people were thinking how could this little dippy little country, Iran, that used to be our great ally…how could they embarrass the mightiest country in the world by holding our hostages” (de los Rios 18).

Shapiro knew that the crisis was something that worried the American public, but he did not say that people felt that the country “lost it’s edge” as depicted in “Miracles.” Lastly, as Shapiro talked about the Russians in Afghanistan he did share the same point of view as the video when the invasion first began, “what the concern was that somebody would do something crazy. And who knows?… who knows what they’re gonna do?” (de los

Rios 19). However, he was also quick to point out how that feeling changed as time went on. “But the longer that went on, the more it became obvious that that was Russia’s

Vietnam” (de los Rios 19). This was a point that was not made in many historical documents regarding the invasion that focused on the initial impact of the invasion.

When talking about the game, Shapiro regarded it as one of the great moments in sports history. “When Eruzione scored, I almost jumped through the roof celebrating, and the whole place went nuts…[when the game ended] Those were the biggest goose bumps I ever had” (de los Rios 27). Shapiro clearly acknowledged the fact that he had witnessed something special. He also stated that if the team had lost, “that team would have been still given parades, they still would have given the visit to the White House, still would have gotten their just rewards, and people would have been very proud of their effort to get to that point” (de los Rios 30). This topic was not even considered in “Miracles.” Shapiro emphasized that just for the team to make it in to the medal round was a great achievement. Probably the most important thing that Shapiro said was about what the game meant on a national and international scale:

It was a game on a world stage, it made no difference in terms of the Russians

doing anything different, politically, it made no difference in the way we did, it

did make the country feel great and proud, and maybe some people might have

been, as I said earlier, a little embarrassed, feeling a little low, if you can say that

about an entire country, I don’t think that’s true (de los Rios 33).

Shapiro’s comment epitomized his feeling throughout the interview. The fact that it was a great game and sports event but it did not affect the world in any way more than the people of the United States being happy that their team won.

Leonard Shapiro’s comments on the hockey game between the United States were very worldly compared to other historical resources about the game. Shapiro’s two main points were that he did not feel that the country was depressed or that the game brought the country out of that depression. “Nobody lost faith in the country” (de los Rios 18), very simply shoes that he did not feel that the apparent crisis of self-esteem existed in the

United States at the time. Furthermore, he made a very important, and somewhat unexpected, point that he did not feel any hatred towards the Russian people. He also felt that the country shared in this opinion. When asked if he just wanted the U.S. team to

“beat those commie bastards” he responded emphatically, “I never felt that way, I always looked at people who felt like that way were a lot of un-educated people who took the us versus them a little bit too far. Way to far”(de los Rios 44). Furthermore, he was quick to point out that he hated the Russian system and not the people:

No I didn’t hat the Rus-No! I just hated the system, I didn’t like the system. I

though the system brutalized people…I think most people, most Russian people,

and the common man, loved America…I don’t think most of the American people

hated the Russian people, they hated the government, they hated the system (de

los Rios 22).

Shapiro makes it very clear that he did not feel any sort of animosity towards the Russian people, but rather, he hated the government. In fact, Shapiro even says that he respected the Russian people and how they have been so resilient for so many years. This and his view on the Iranian crisis shows that Shapiro’s vision on the game is a more worldly vision than most. Instead of looking at the game superficially as a time in which Russia and the United States were in a Cold War and their people hated one another, he felt that the overall population of both countries did not hate each other as much as they hated each other’s system. Furthermore, he did not overly dramatize the situations that occurred in Iran and Afghanistan because he did not just focus on the initial reaction to each situation. He gave a more realistic version of what occurred instead of that the country was helpless and could not do anything. “I mean it was just that kind of an atmosphere where we were very proud to be Americans and you were proud of your country, you were proud we didn’t step in and attack them” (de los Rios 18). Shapiro’s views shows one side of the game and the events surrounding it is crucial for studying that time period because it provides a more realistic view one cannot encounter watching a movie or documentary.

There were many things that I would have done differently if I had the opportunity to do the interview again. First and foremost, I would have seen the HBO documentary directly before doing the interview so I could have it fresh in my head.

Because it was not on home video before the interview, I did not have this opportunity.

Even though the documentary somewhat dramatizes the game, it has many interviews and comments that add to the dramatization and having the comments fresh in my mind would have provided for better follow up questions. Furthermore, I would phrase my questions more clearly than I did. Because of the fact that I was taken aback by his comments being so different from what I thought they would be, I panicked a little and when I would intend to ask one question, I would actually be asking another. Although I did get the answer desired, it would have been better for the flow of the interview.

Lastly, if I had the opportunity, I would also interview Al Michaels or one of the players from the U.S. team in order to get that dramatized version of the events and thus getting many points of view on the subject. While it was great to get an opinion that slightly contrasted to the overall view on the game, I think that it would be great to take that point of view and see what people who dramatize the game think about it.

Table of Contents Appendix Appendix A

Picture from the Los Angeles Times shown to Leonard Shapiro (pg. 34)17

17 The Los Angeles Times, 25 Feb. 1980, early ed.: 15 Appendix B

Headline from The New York Times mentioned in first paragraph of contextualization (pg. 4) 18

18 Shirley, Bill. “Good Guys Win and Cheering’s OK in Press box.” The Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 1980, early ed.: 4. Appendix C

Political cartoon from the Washington Post, Nov. 1979.19

19 The Washington Post. 31 Nov. 1979,:A18 Appendix D

Front page of the New York Times on December 28th, 1979.20

20 Gwertzman, Bernard. “An Exile Takes Over.” The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1979.: A1 Appendix E

Front Page of The New York Times on December 29th, 197921

21 Gwertzman, Bernard. “Carter Calls Soviet Actions a ‘Threat.’” The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1979, late ed.: 1 Appendix F

Coach Herb Brooks looking on from the bench

Soviet player being checked in the first period of play. Sports Illustrated picture of one of Jim Craig’s saves

Eruzione’s game winning goal in the third period. U.S. team celebrating win over Russians

Another Picture of the U.S. team celebrating their victory

U.S. team celebrates its win over Finland to win the gold. 22

22 (All Pictures) The Ultimate Miracle on Ice Website. 15 Jan. 2002. < http://www.angelfire.com/80s/lake80/> Bibliography.

American Foreign Policy. Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1979.

“Do You Believe in Miracles?”: The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team. Dir. Charles Marsella. DVD. HBO Sports, 2001.

Eskenazi, Gerald, et al. Miracle On Ice. New York: Bantam Books, 1980.

Gwertzman, Bernard. “Carter Calls Soviet Actions a ‘Threat.’” The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1979, early ed.: 1.

Haas, Garland A. Jimmy Carter and the Politics of Frustration. Raleigh: McFarland & Company Incorporated Publishers, 1992.

Hargrove, Erwin C. Jimmy Carter As President: Leadership and the Politics of Public Good. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Karp, Walter. Liberty Under Siege. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988.

Matson, Barbara. “’80 Hockey Team Made Us Believe.” The Boston Globe, 14 Dec. 1999, early ed.: E3.

Melanson, Richard A., ed. Neither Cold War nor Détente? Soviet American Relations in The 1980’s. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982.

“Olympic Games” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 3 Dec. 2001.

Schwartz, Richard Alan. Cold War Reference Guide. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company Incorporated Publishers, 1997.

Shapiro, Leonard. “USA. Golden.” The Washington Post, 25 Feb. 1980, early ed.: D1.

---. “U.S. Shocks Soviets in Ice Hockey, 4-3.” The Washington Post, 23 Feb. 1980, early ed.: D1.

--- . “U.S. Will Meet Soviets Friday.” The Washington Post, 21 Feb. 1980, early ed.: F1.

Shirley, Bill. “Good Guys Win and Cheering’s OK in Press box.” The Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 1980, early ed.: 4.

Spencer, Donald S. The Carter Implosion: Jimmy Carter and the Amateur Style of Diplomacy. New York: Praeger Publishing, 1988. “Strategic Arms Limitation Talks” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 3 Dec. 2001.

Swift, E.M. “Sportsmen of the Year: A Reminder of What We Can Be.” Sports Illustrated Dec. 22-29. 1980: 30-46.

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