With One Phone Call It all Changed

Mention the name Dewey in Lake Placid and most folks will point to the site of the former Lake Placid Club or perhaps mention how Melvil created the Dewey Decimal system used worldwide to catalog libraries. But for most, the Dewey legacy ends there. few if any realize that without Melvil's quiet bespectacled son Godfrey there would be no bob run, no indoor skating arena, no speedskating oval and no Lake Placid 1932 and 1980 Olympics.

Nor do they know about how it all started with one phone call in December 1927 and a question, "Would Lake Placid be interested in hosting the Olympics?"

If not for Godfrey, that phone call and his 1927-1928 trip through Europe's winter sports venues, the landscape, economic climate and the very definition of Lake Placid and the surrounding area would be very different today.

What Godfrey witnessed on that 10-week fact-finding trip and as U.S. Ski team manager at the 1928 Games in St. Moritz convinced him that-despite the Great Depression, rival American bid committees, and horrified local residents - Placid could and should host the 1932 Games. And Godfrey's vision allowed him to create the institutions that would become the cornerstones to Lake Placid's Olympic legacy.

Sometimes a phone call is all it takes.

-Scott