Three area residents will work events in Salt Lake City

CARLOS ORTIZ Cross-country ski officials (from left) Ruth Hayes, Lee Mahood and Rob Howell have volunteered to work the biathlon and Nordic events during the Winter Olympics in Utah. Cross-country Olympians Three Rochester-area Nordic officials have been accepted to work as volunteer officials in cross-country ski and biathlon events at the Salt Lake Olympics, which begin Friday. Ruth Hayes, 70, Honeoye Falls. Rob Howell, 56, Fairport. Lee Mahood, 62, Hemlock.

By Gary Fallesen
Democrat and Chronicle

(Sunday, February 3, 2002) -- Ruth Hayes chauffeured Joan Smith to her first ski race, then to her first biathlon, and was with her when she went to her first Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

She figured it was the least she could do: "I was Joanie's fourth-grade teacher."

She didn't teach her French, but she had a hand in Smith becoming America's top female biathlete in the early 1990s.

Hayes looked on as the women's biathlon took the Olympic stage in 1992, and watched the sport continue to grow. Ten years later, she's still a part of the movement.

The 70-year-old Honeoye Falls resident will take her place in the Salt Lake Games this week as a volunteer at the biathlon and Nordic ski events. She will be joined by Rob Howell, 56, of Fairport, and Lee Mahood, 62, of Hemlock, Livingston County, both of whom are volunteers assigned to the Nordic Stadium in Soldier Hollow near Park City, Utah.

Each of the three will have to pay their own way to and from the Games, receiving lodging while they're there and breakfast and lunch on the days they are working (at least 14 or 15 of the 18 or 19 they're scheduled to be in Utah).

But the price for admission is worth it.

"The best skiers will be there," Howell says. "We get to be a part of that. We have a front-row seat."

Howell is a course official for Nordic skiing, Mahood a stadium official, and Hayes' job will be to help the athletes at the start and finish lines.

"At the World Cup (last winter), I practiced my job," Hayes recalls. "It's exciting being at the finishing line when they're coming in.

"Back in '88 we thought the women were going to be in the Olympics (in the biathlon) at Calgary. I had this dream of being an Olympic official. I got all the credentials. Then the women weren't in. But the dream didn't die."

Hayes went as a fan in 1992 and '96. Her favorite athlete was Smith, who had graduated from the Honeoye Falls Bill Koch youth ski league that Hayes first organized two decades ago.

"They used to call me the grandmother of cross-country skiing," Hayes says, laughing.

Hayes even coached the Honeoye Falls-Lima high school team from 1980 to '82 when Walt Dyer went to Pittsford.

"Believe me, I know nothing about it," Hayes says of coaching. "I'm a good supporter. I make good cocoa and cheer."

Hayes may be selling herself short. She grew up on cross-country skis, having learned how to ski before she started going to school in her native Vermont.

"I skied back and forth to school," says the mother of six -- five of whom skied competitively and two of whom became coaches. "It's in our blood.

"My mother grew up on skis. She was in her 80s skiing.

"We ran a ski lodge in the 1950s. I love the sport."

Hayes and Mahood started the New York Nordic ski league after the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

"With the poor snow seasons we can have, it's hard to keep a good Nordic season going," Hayes says. "It takes a lot of PR and praying to keep it going."

Mahood also skied while growing up in Owego, Tioga County.

"Back in the old days it wasn't as fancy as it is now," says the retired HF-L teacher. "You'd put on skis and go around the fields and so on."

Mahood's three children all skied, including Colin, 24, who was 12th in qualifying for the U.S. Nordic Ski Team. The top eight finishers at the Trials made the Salt Lake Games.

Lee did not pursue his personal Olympic dream because his son might have been competing.

"I just wanted to move on and try something at that level," says the man who does the scoring and timing for the Empire State Games and area high school meets. "If Colin had made it, that would have been an added bonus."

Mahood didn't really expect to see his youngest son in a U.S. uniform because Colin has only been training at the national-team level for two years. He might be a hopeful for the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy.

"When we signed up, Lee had his fingers crossed that Colin would be on the team," Hayes says.

There was no guarantee either Mahood would be in Utah.

Twenty officials were selected from each section of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. "Not many people from this district were willing to commit the time," Howell says, explaining why three from the Rochester area were accepted.

Howell, a native of London, Ontario, who is a medical researcher at the University of Rochester, has been involved in cross-country skiing since his daughter, Liane, was on the Fairport High team. "I went out to watch one day and they needed help with the officiating," he says, thinking back 12 years.

The next thing he knew he was overseeing Section V's officials.

"I look at this as the next step up from the local high school racing," he jokes.

Howell is really honored to be a part of the Games. When he's not working at the Nordic Stadium, he has tickets for the figure skating pairs final and the men's combined downhill slalom.

It's another example of what cross-country skiing can do for a person, Hayes reasons.

"There are so many opportunities in this sport," grandmother Hayes says, "and yet it's a lifetime sport. We can be doing this, well, when we're in our 90s."