U.S. skiers almost always promise more than they produce. There was a flurry of excitement in 1964, when the U.S. won a few minor medals at the Olympics, but things quickly went from better to bad. Last year Americans failed to beat Europeans in a single important race. There was no reason to expect anything different this year—until a lanky desperado named William Winston Kidd went hunting in the Alps.
A sophomore at the University of Colorado, Kidd, 22, finished second in the special slalom at Innsbruck in 1964, thus becoming the first American ever to win an Olympic medal...