By Town Crier Staff Report
Beverly Brockway of Los Altos relived past Olympic glories last month when she and other members of the 1960 Winter Olympics team were honored during the U.S. Alpine Championships and Chevy Truck Return of Champions held at Squaw Valley.
“It was a wonderful experience,” said Brockway, 63, a 34-year Los Altos resident.
One of only six women on the 1960 team, Brockway recalled many of the details of her Olympic days and her successes leading up to the event. She was one of the most dominant U.S. ski racers of that time.
In 1958, she won all four U.S. alpine titles: downhill, giant slalom, slalom and combined.
She was the national giant slalom and downhill gold medalist as well as winner of the Snow Cup Silver Belt and Canadian Nationals.
At last month’s event, members from the 1960 team renewed acquaintances. They participated in a cruise on Lake Tahoe and were treated to a banquet. Brockway also met current team member Bode Miller, who won two silver medals at this year’s Winter Olympics.
Brockway still enjoys skiing. She also keeps active in Olympic activities. Brockway is a member of the Northern California Olympians, a group working to bring the Olympics to San Francisco.
Brockway recalled clearly and fondly the culture that existed in skiing paradises such as Sun Valley, Idaho. In the late-1950s and early 1960s, Sun Valley was the recreation haven for celebrities such as Bing Crosby and Ernest Hemingway. She recalled Hemingway inviting her into a bar for a two-hour conversation. “He was asking me questions like, ‘How do you keep your femininity and still be an athlete?’” Brockway said.
When onlookers spied the crusty American novelist with the impressionable young lady, Hemingway shot back, “Don’t worry, she’s not drinking.”
After skiing, Brockway earned her master’s degree in remedial reading, and taught at Huff School in Mountain View. Brockway later went into real estate and currently runs her own business.
She has two children, Lori and Gregg. Gregg followed in mom’s tracks as a skiier and nearly made the Olympics himself.
