December 21, 2005

People are talking about what a great Christmas present it is for Remsen's Erin Hamlin. Last week she made the U.S. Olympic luge team.

An Olympian from Oneida County. Wow!

This doesn't happen very often. In fact, the last Oneida County Winter Olympian who I know about was Val Bialas, a speed skater. I will tell you about him in a second.

Hamlin, 19, a 2004 graduate of Remsen Central School, where she was on the varsity track and soccer teams, is more than just an athlete. While at Remsen she was a member of the National Honor Society, on the yearbook staff and a reporter for the school newspaper. The Observer-Dispatch was impressed enough to name her a "Teen All Star."

Erin, the daughter of Eilleen and Ron Hamlin, will be coming down a mountain on her sled at Torino, Italy for the XX Olympic Winter Games, Feb. 10-26th. The world will be watching, especially people living in this part of the world.

We will be rooting on one of our own, just as people in Oneida County did in 1924 when Utica's own Val Bialas went to the French Alps. Bialis won a bronze medal in the 5,000 meters and finished eighth in the 10,000 meters. The team finished third.

In 1928, Bialas went to the Olympics again, this time in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and was named team captain. He came in sixth in both of his races and the team again took the bronze.

In 1932, Bialas competed at the Olympics again, this time in Lake Placid. He finished fifth in the 10,000 meters.

Bialas was also a great tennis player and won numerous tournaments and was Utica's champion five times.

But the thing that impresses me the most about Val Bialas is not his world records or trophies. It's this: He was in an automobile accident in 1935. His leg was crushed and had to be amputated. His Olympic career, of course, was over. The accident made headlines in newspapers all over the country.

Bialas battled back, though. Within a year he was skating again. He sent a note to Len Wilbur, sports editor of the Observer-Dispatch. "If anyone is interested in taking up speed skating," Bialas wrote, ""I would gladly help to start them off."

And he did. And he gave skating exhibitions. And he started playing tennis again.

Bialis died at age 61. Cancer.

And now - after all these years - we have someone else from Oneida County going to the Winter Olympics. Erin Hamlin is going, and we're going to root just as hard as Oneida County residents did way back when for another Olympic athlete.

Let me correct something I wrote in the first paragraph of this column. Now that I think about it, this is not "a great Christmas present" for Erin Hamlin. Presents are given. Erin Hamlin wasn't given anything. She has worked harder than any of us will ever know to get to the Olympics.


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Joe Kelly is the editor and publisher of The Boonville Herald & Adirondack Tourist and THE GRIFF.