In luge, competitors lie on their backs on sleds and travel feet-first down the course as fast as they can.

Eddy said he asked the president of Lolo Hot Springs about building a course.

“I remember meeting with Gene Tripp and he says if you want to help build and maintain the track, you can use the sled and you can slide for free,” Eddy told the Missoulian. “That just fit the bill. That’s how I really got started in luge.”

“We just made slush and put it on the track by shovel and smoothed it off the best we could,” Eddy added. “You can imagine it was pretty bumpy and rough and stuff. Nobody really had a good idea how tracks were built.”

Murray said members of the luge club used borrowed sleds on the track, which stretched over about two-thirds of a mile.

“None of us had helmets either,” he said. “A friend had his father’s old Air Force flight helmet. So when you got to the bottom, you’d jump off quick and give it to the next guy so he could run up to the top to make his run.”

Four Montanans helped make up the fledgling U.S. Olympic Luge Committee, including chairman Patrick Byrne of Helena. The others were Dave Rivines of Miles City and luge-course developers Tripp of Lolo and Don Delaney of Missoula.