In This Issue:

October 1999 -- Vol. 28, No. 2

SPOTLIGHT

When Cameron Myler was 11 years old and known to all as “Cammy,” her parents took her to the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. As she watched the women’s luge competitors bomb past her at breakneck speed, Myler knew this was exactly what she wanted to do.

“My brother had been doing it for a couple of years, so I just gave it a shot,” says Myler, a second-year student at Boston College Law School. “I went to a Junior Olympics camp at Lake Placid, placed first in the race in my age category at the end of the summer, and the rest is history.”

History, indeed. Luge—perhaps best described as race sledding—became a passion to which Myler devoted herself almost exclusively for two decades. She competed for the national team for more than 14 years, represented the United States at four Winter Olympics, and continues to this day to hold the best U.S. women’s finish ever in luge at the Olympics, placing fifth in Albertville, France, in 1992.

Myler’s contributions to the sport off the luge track have been equally important. Selected to represent the interests of U.S. competitors with the Athletes’ Advisory Council, she was later appointed to the board of directors of the U.S. Olympic Committee, a position she continues to hold. The people she met while filling these roles inspired her to attend law school.

“I was at the point in my career where I was thinking about life after luge,” Myler recalls, describing the days leading up to her fourth Olympics appearance at the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan. “I met a lot of lawyers in my position with the USOC, and that seemed like an appealing option to combine both a career and my love for sports.”

After a summer internship in Colorado, Myler arrived at Boston College Law School in August 1998 ready for a new challenge. “Getting back into an academic environment was great,” she says, adding that the transition from luge to law school was natural. “In luge, we used to have to schlep our equipment all over Europe, moving from track to track almost every week,” she explains. “One time in Frankfurt, Germany, we weighed our gear at over a ton. The books at law school aren’t quite as heavy.”

Actually, going to law school full time on a regular calendar has been a whole new academic environment for Myler. A 1995 graduate of Dartmouth College, she managed to squeeze an undergraduate Ivy League degree into the luge off-season, attending classes at Dartmouth’s New Hampshire campus between April and September for seven years.

Myler hasn’t taken a break since arriving at Boston College, either. Last year, she and another student organized a highly successful fund-raising auction for the Public Interest Law Foundation, raising more than $4,000 to pay summer stipends for law students taking public-interest internships. This year, she is president of the Boston College Arts, Media, Entertainment, and Sports Law Society, and hopes to launch a journal for sports and entertainment law. Myler also looks forward to sponsoring a reinvigorated speaker series at Boston College, with a renewed emphasis on the arts as well as the traditional focus on sports.

Although Myler is an accomplished athlete, she also maintains a passionate interest in art. “I took up oil painting while I was at Dartmouth,” she says. She has since shown her work at the New York Athletic Club and has three paintings in the International Cultural Consortium’s art show, a collection of works by Olympians that has traveled throughout Europe. Now Myler is a member of the Organizing Committee for the Eighth Biennial Sportsperson in Arts display.

“Cameron’s contributions to her class and the law school cannot be overstated,” says Tom Gaynor, president of the Boston College Law School Law Student Association and a classmate of Myler’s. “She is an exceptional person and inspiring leader, and the ideas she has about arts and entertainment law at Boston College are tremendous.”

Though tempted by the prospects of another run at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Myler is both daunted by the rigorous physical demands and the hectic luge touring schedule. She has enjoyed spending more time with her boyfriend and working this past summer in the Colorado Springs offices of Hogan & Hartson, a Washington-based firm. Though not certain what she will do after law school, she’s happy to be at Boston College while she decides. And one thing is for certain. “I absolutely will stay with the USOC,” Myler says. “The Olympics and luge have been a part of my life for over two decades. I wouldn’t give that up for the world.” •

Brandon Bigelow