Sheffield believed in every fiber of his being that Lake Placid was the perfect community to host a second Winter Olympics, and he shared that belief with anyone and everyone he met. He also believed that our region’s youth could successfully compete and win at any level, and he did everything he could to instill that belief in them and then help them achieve their goals.

Sheffield was one of Lake Placid’s leading sports ambassadors. Nothing could dampen Sheffield’s enthusiasm. He could lighten the darkest day and convert many others into true believers. In many respects, Sheffield was a one-man Adirondack Sports Council, which is also to say it’s carrying his energy forward, as are many other organizations in our community.

The Adirondack Sports Council takes a regional approach. Like Sheffield, it helps agencies develop an event strategy, planning and execution, and it brings a wide array of contacts and access to people with the expertise and experience to market and host events. The council can help agencies nurture talent and care for visiting teams so they will leave praising the area.

The council can help agencies develop bid packages, sell them to the overarching sports authority, help develop marketing and sponsorship opportunities, and promote the event. Their most recent large-scale success was working with the state Olympic Regional Development Authority, other community leaders and officials to acquire and host the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games. The council’s early success in helping recruit Ironman, National Bass Tournaments on Lake Champlain, and several other major sporting events are not to be forgotten.

The council, founded in 1997 as the Adirondack Sports Commission, grew out of the 2000 Club with Kris Bronander as its first director. Its mission was to cultivate sustainable economic development throughout the Adirondack region using sports tourism and a bid for an Olympics as a catalyst. In partnership with ORDA and the North Elba Park District, the commission submitted bids for the 1999 U.S. Canoe & Kayak Sprint Nationals and the 1998 Summer National Biathlon Championships and met with the U.S. Olympic Congress.

In 1998, they made the finals for hosting the men and women’s 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials, hosted the 1998 Summer National Biathlon Championships, and helped facilitate the 1999 FISA Rowing Tour on Lake Champlain and Lake George. They were awarded the 2000 Winter National Senior Games, which featured five events — Alpine skiing, curling, cross-country skiing, ice hockey and snowshoe racing — and a community dinner for the 1997-98 USA Hockey Women’s Team. They helped secure the Ironman triathlon in Lake Placid.

While initial funding came from the state, that funding was cut in half after the second year, as Bronander said, to encourage regional investment in the commission and events held. In time, insufficient ongoing funding was raised to keep the agency going, partly because of a lack of appreciation for the need.

“The sports commission came back to life in 2015 as the sports council through the Adirondack Regional Development Corporation,” said Jim McKenna, president and CEO of the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism in Lake Placid. “It identified that the Olympic venues had to be updated for long-term economic gain, and hosting an international multi-sport event would be the key to making that happen; that ended up being FISU. It also recommended a sports commission to work around the region. As it’s normally a nonprofit that national and international sports organizations like to deal with, not necessarily a government agency. The sports commission, renamed the sports council, got up and running again, pretty much to be the organizational body for the games, working in cooperation with ORDA.”

Today, the sports council, led by McKenna as the president of the board and Tracy Smith as the executive director, is supported by a mix of foundations and strategic partnerships, critical in a successful effort to bid for and host the 2023 FISU games, with the council then led by Ashley Walden, who is now the CEO of ORDA.

In 2018, when interest was increasing in Lake Placid hosting the World University Games, Darcy Norfolk was brought on board as a consultant, working with McKenna, the board and partner agencies like ORDA to develop the village’s bid document. Before that, Norfolk helped revitalize and put together the structure of the council.

“It was a quick turnaround,” said Norfolk. “Once we got the document to them, it was off to the races to prepare for inspection visits. I helped spearhead those initial initiatives up until Ashley was hired.”

Norfolk said that community leaders, including those involved in sports, realized that the community needed an agency like the original sports commission to pull together a mix of agencies, resources, and talent to go after events in an increasingly competitive environment; that Lake Placid could not rest on its history and expect opportunities to come to them, be they an international, national, regional or more specialty event. They needed an agency to answer housing, permits and volunteer questions.

“I think the sports council is of great value in providing sports services,” said Norfolk.

That value proved itself in working with others to organize and host the FISU games, which has resulted in significant upgrades to all the venues, including the Saranac Lake Civic Center, bringing them to the highest FIS standards, praise by the competitors and officials, worldwide visibility, over 57,000 tickets sold, and follow-up events like the World Cup ski jump competition. The games proved to international federations and large-scale sporting organizations that Lake Placid could host modern-day events. All that and more was made possible even though handicapped by COVID-19, inflation, a worldwide supply train shortage, substantial housing not brought online as anticipated and weather challenges.

In many respects, the highest compliment to the council’s success under Walden was ORDA hiring her to take the reins following the retirement of Mike Pratt. Another was the Mohawk Valley Garden and the City of Utica looking to the council to help them organize and host the 2024 IIHF Women’s Hockey World Championships from April 2 to 14.

“I think we learned from the World University Games is that when you put together a group of organizations that are committed to pulling off an ambitious event, that utilizes all the resources we have in a small town like Lake Placid, and importing some needed, that you can achieve big things,” said Smith. “We were lucky to have great strategic partners working together towards a common goal.”

Currently, the council is assisting ORDA’s bid to host the 2026 Olympic sliding events and is the organizing committee for the 2024 Adirondack Marathon in Schroon Lake and the Empire State Winter Games in February.

Bunny Sheffield’s spirit and vision live on.

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley. He has been covering events for the Lake Placid News for more than 15 years.)