This month marks the 20th anniversary celebration of the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Park City and Salt Lake City. Evanston can join in that celebration as being the host city for the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation athletes, who competed in 2002 Winter Games.

Local attorney Paul Skog is largely responsible for the Jamaican bobsledders deciding to make Evanston their home while training for the Olympics. In 1988, the Jamaican bobsled team became famous when they crashed at the Calgary Olympics, inspiring a movie that was made in 1993 based on the crash.

Skog watched the movie “Cool Runnings,” which listed the four original team members’ names in the credits: Cal Stokes, Chris Stokes, Michael White and Devon Harris. Skog was inspired and caught what he calls “Olympic Fever.”

In the winter of 1997, the bobsled track in Park City had opened and Salt Lake City was in the running for the 2002 Olympics. Because of the proximity to Utah, Skog said he wanted Evanston to be a part of the planned Olympics and decided to call the Jamaican team and suggest they use Evanston as their training center. He talked with Chris Stokes, who was president of the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation at the time and, to Skog’s surprise, Stokes was open to coming to check out the area. 

“In May of 1997, I made arrangements for the team to fly here and Young Chevrolet loaned us a van to pick them up at the airport here in Evanston,” Skog said. “On Friday night, we had a meet-and-greet at Kate’s. On Saturday, residents met the team at Depot Square, where the athletes played an informal soccer game with children and — for three hours — signed autographs. On Sunday, they toured the bobsled track in Park City, and [they] left on Monday.”

Soon after the visit, Skog said, he received a call from Stokes and the team had decided to make Evanston their training base. The team of three, Devon Harris, Patrick Robinson and Jason Morris arrived June 1, 1997.  The people in Evanston were very supportive, Skog said, in meeting the housing and transportation needs for the team. An employee at the Wyoming State Hospital made a training sled for the bobsled team.

“Jack Jarose called me.” Skog said. “He offered two apartments at no cost at his Red Mountain Apartments. Alan Griffin at Domino’s Pizza offered all three athletes night jobs so they could train in the daytime. I loaned them vehicles. The school district allowed them to use track and sports equipment, as did the recreation center. It was wonderful the way all of the people in Evanston made this venture a success.”

Later in 1997, Chris and Cal Stokes retired from bobsledding and Harris, the team captain, retired. The team from 1997 didn’t return, and Winston Watts took over as captain of the team. In 2001, Watts and Loscelle “King” Brown took 3rd place in the two-man competition in Calgary, Canada. Winston qualified for the Salt Lake Winter Games in 2002. In 2005, Watts made Evanston his permanent home.

“We’re the underdogs, being located where we are in the West,” Skog told the Florida Sentinel in February 2002. “They’re the underdogs in bobsledding. I was thinking, ‘Gee, we can put two underdogs together and maybe come up with a miracle.’”

Rick Lunsford, who became coordinator of the Evanston Olympic Committee, worked for the City of Evanston’s water department during the 2002 Olympics. He attended a meeting in 2000, in which then-Mayor Will Davis and others expressed interest in forming a committee to head up plans for Evanston to benefit from the Olympics. Lunsford stepped up and volunteered.

“Boy, raising my hand changed my life,” Lunsford said. “I soon had an office at City Hall and was inundated with work. It was chaos at times for me, but great people jumped in and made everything happen. Mayor Davis was very supportive and the city set up a budget for the events and provided the help of city employees in setting up bleachers and other work involved.”

A story in the Herald, dated Feb. 10, 2002, stated, “The city of Evanston had budgeted $250,000 to promote itself and the State of Wyoming had budgeted $300,000 on promotions. A week before the games began, there was only a 20% vacancy in Evanston hotels.”

Months before the start of the Olympics, the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee had booked a majority of the hotel rooms in Evanston, but six months before the events began the committee withdrew their reservations and released the rooms. This gave the Evanston committee more incentive to promote the local businesses and fill those hotel rooms.

Lunsford said Evanston leaders hoped that the city would benefit from the overflow of visitors to Park City and Salt Lake City, and they wanted to build a promotional campaign. Then-chamber director Mark Madia, longtime Evanston City Clerk Jim Davis, Mayor Will Davis and the city council, along with residents and business leaders all caught Skog’s “Olympic Fever.”

Evanston’s young Joe Sisson also caught the bobsledding bug and, with brakeman Andrew Tucker of Pensacola Beach, Florida, won a bronze in the America’s Cup two-man competition at Canada Olympic Park prior to the 2002 games. Sisson was working toward qualifying for the Salt Lake Olympics, but was later injured and couldn’t compete.

Lunsford and Jamaican bobsledder Devon Harris went on tour to Denver and visited schools, hospitals, and organizations to spread the word that Evanston would be a great place to stay when traveling to the Olympics. Lunsford said they received a great response from Colorado television stations and news channels. They held a meet-and-greet at a historic Denver restaurant that garnered media coverage.

“The tour worked. We filled the hotel rooms with reservations again,” Lunsford said. “We also got other Wyoming cities involved with a mini-tour around Wyoming. Alpine, Jackson, Lovell, Afton and Kemmerer ended up sending volunteers to help with the hospitality suites we rented in Park City on Main Street.”

“We even had jets landing here from Russia,” Jim Davis said. “They wanted food catered, and we weren’t prepared. It was pretty exciting.”

Because of the no-fly zone around the Olympics, the Evanston airport was welcoming Lear jets, Gulfstreams, Challengers and dozens of other top-dollar jets. The airport was selling a 7,500-gallon tanker load of gasoline a day, some days two tankers. One Saturday, the Norway Olympians left from Evanston Airport and Russian Vice President Valentina Matviyenko’s jet landed in Evanston.

“I called Coni Richin, who worked with Mitt Romney, and she came to Evanston and spoke about the Olympics,” Madia said. “The event at Depot Square saw 1,500 people attend. The chamber sponsored extra mixers. I was blessed to have a hardworking and proactive chamber board. It was a magical time and a wonderful way to showcase Evanston and Wyoming.”

Jim Davis and Lunsford both said the hospitality suites the city of Evanston rented in Park City provided a real benefit. The two spaces were located at the base of the ski lift and gave Evanston two storefronts in the heart of Olympic action. They placed a model sled out in front and people could take their pictures sitting in it. A life-size model bison was also placed there for photos.

One suite was filled with Wyoming gift items and information and the second suite was a place where people could get warm and talk to volunteers. They saw 400 to 600 visitors a day from all over the world. 

“We rented those suites for 17 days of the Olympics and it was a very successful venture,” Lunsford said. “We had events in Evanston scheduled for the entire 17 days as well. The volunteers were wonderful because we had to have someone there every day and someone in Evanston as well. I was mostly in Evanston, so I am so thankful to those volunteers.”

Evanston events included fireworks in a snowstorm; a 25-foot Jumbotron screen located in Depot Square with heated bleachers so people could sit outside and watch the Olympic events and drink hot chocolate; there were parades; the Chinese New Year festivities with rickshaw races; ice-carving displays; chainsaw woodcarving contests; flags from all of the Olympic participating countries were displayed downtown; and many other informal get-togethers of residents.

“Rulon Gardner, the Olympic wrestling champion from Star Valley, came and rode in the parade and spoke with people,” Lunsford said. “Gardner and Gov. Jim Geringer both visited the hospitality suites in Park City and greeted visitors. The whole thing was an enormous success.”

Lunsford said Evanston made a big enough splash in world news that he and his wife were treated to a trip to Vancouver, Canada, so he could provide advice to the small surrounding towns near Vancouver on how to benefit from the Olympics there.

“Even though it was a lot of hard work, I really hope Salt Lake City gets the winter Olympics again,” Lunsford said, “but I don’t know if I will raise my hand this time.”