SALT LAKE CITY — The stucco fixer-upper on the south slope of Camelback Mountain on the outskirts of Phoenix was an outdated '60s contemporary, with avocado-colored appliances, Brady Bunch decor and a $400,000 price tag.
In the real estate market of the early '80s — bogged down by double-digit interest rates and fainthearted buyers — the house went unsold for two years. Then, Sandra Baldwin entered as Arizona's newest real estate broker. Against all logic, Baldwin plunged right into the perilous economic climate.
As a longtime English professor at Arizona State, a guide on the Colorado River and the caretaker of her family's farm during the Vietnam War, Baldwin did not hesitate when faced with the challenge of finding success amid foreboding circumstances.
In the 20 years since selling her first house — the unmovable handyman's project on Camelback Mountain — she has turned Baldwin, Baldwin and Shaner into one of the top real estate agencies in the country. She knows about tough sells, daunting markets and the value of location, location, location.
And as the new president of the troubled U.S. Olympic Committee, Baldwin, 61, will no doubt draw on that savvy in an effort to rehabilitate the U.S. Olympic movement. Nothing may be more critical to her image reparations than the success — or failure — of the 2002 Winter Games here.
On Thursday, the 365-day countdown begins. In one year, the world's attention will be focused on Salt Lake City, home of an Olympic bribery scandal but also the site of a potential fresh start. Baldwin's leadership will be tested as the financially strapped USOC tries to win back public confidence and sustain corporate support.
"The scandal — and I hate to go back to it at all — but because of that we have additional challenges," Baldwin said in an interview last week. "We have to show the world and the American public that we can do it right."
Wednesday, Juan Antonio Samaranch, the International Olympic Committee president, punctuated the end of the IOC's three-day executive session in Dakar, Senegal, by formally declaring that the Salt Lake City scandal was over. Such statements by Samaranch won't make the controversy vanish.
There are daily reminders about the possible trial of David Johnson and Thomas Welch, the two Salt Lake City bid officials who are accused of plying IOC delegates with $1 million in inducements to land the Games. On Thursday, the same day as the city's countdown celebration, the lawyers for Johnson and Welch will ask a federal court to dismiss the charges of fraud, bribery and conspiracy. Unless the request is granted, the trial is expected to begin in June, but could be delayed until next winter.
"We're not focused on that; we have to be concerned about our relationship with our athletes, our coaches, our sponsors and our visitors from around the world," Baldwin said. "I, for one, have no intention of even thinking about it."
Even if the public separates the administrative scandal from the Games, the USOC could still use another "Miracle on Ice." With sponsors like UPS and IBM dropping out, the pressure on the committee is multiplied by the fact that the 2002 Winter Games represent the last U.S.-based Olympics for at least a decade.
"The competition for sports dollars out in the marketplace has gotten enormous," Baldwin said. "We need to be prepared to give our sponsors excellent performance, excellent character, and give them America's best foot forward. We want them to feel the American Olympic movement is a good investment."
That comes at a time when the USOC's image is tainted by corruption, the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs and the tactless behavior by some American Olympians.
Over the years, the USOC has looked powerless in dealing with athletes' antics. During the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, USOC leaders failed to uncover which American hockey players ransacked their apartments in the Olympic Village. In the Sydney Games last summer, members of a U.S. relay team, led by Maurice Greene, preened before the cameras, turning the American flag into a prop for their poses.
The scene left Baldwin shaking her head. But by enlisting the help of the relay team members, she believes the USOC can prevent another crude incident in the future.
"Those exuberant young men in Sydney have been very cooperative," Baldwin said. "They said they made a mistake, and they were wrong. They didn't mean to be disrespectful of the flag. But they've also said we could use some of the footage of what they did in our athlete orientation at future Games, including Salt Lake. In effect, the footage will be used to say, 'This is not the way to behave.' Our athletes can't forget how, in their exuberance, they are perceived."
Baldwin is less aware of how she is perceived. She was stunned by the attention she received in December, when she became the first woman elected USOC president. Before the holidays were over, her name had surfaced in a question on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."
There is an unpretentious air about Baldwin. Unlike previous leaders of the USOC, she does not appear more concerned with the cocktail-party glamour of the position.
"I think she's critical to the Olympic movement in the United States," said Mitt Romney, who took over as president and chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee after the scandal broke two years ago. "We're a piece of that. The Olympic movement in the United States is very much in need of strong leadership to capitalize on the sponsors that we've brought to the Olympics, to shore up support in Washington for the Games and to make sure our voice is heard at the International Olympic Committee level.
"What's great about Sandy is that she is a very, very strong leader. She is very committed to the athletes and to the Games. And she is irrepressible. I think she is just what the doctor ordered."
Baldwin's direct political style has been molded by her family's longtime relationship with Arizona's Goldwater family. She dated Barry Goldwater Jr. when she was a freshman at the University of Colorado. And throughout her life, she has admired the way Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Republican, presented himself without concern for the consequences.
"Barry Goldwater has always been my political hero," Baldwin said. "I think Barry Goldwater said what he thought. And he lived up to his convictions. You couldn't label him. People tried to label him when he ran for the presidency. But you really couldn't because Barry was very liberal on some issues and very conservative on others. He didn't just say what was politically correct because he thought it would win friends and influence people."
Norm Blake, the former USOC chief executive, found out just how brazen Baldwin could be. On Oct. 10, she sent a letter to the outgoing committee president, Bill Hybl, criticizing Blake's budget plan, which among other things proposed cutting funding to sports that did not produce medals. Two weeks later, Blake, a corporate turnaround artist who was hired nine months earlier to streamline the USOC, resigned. On his way out, Blake called Baldwin's tactic underhanded.
But the athletes who opposed Blake's money-for-medals plan celebrated Baldwin's efforts. In large part, their support led to her election as president. But she began her ascent to the top volunteer position in the USOC in the late '60s, when she spent hours timing the swim meets in which her son, Clay, competed.
"Some ask how she has achieved what she has, and she answers that it was a great call from above," Clay Baldwin said on the day of his mother's election. "And that call was, 'Hey, moms and dads, we need some volunteers for the meet.'
"Her life is a process of moving forward. There is no side-to-side."
Baldwin did not hesitate to take over her father's citrus and barley farm when her older brother joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War, and she did not stop her pursuit of an education until she finished her doctorate at Arizona State with a dissertation titled "Neoclassic Backgrounds of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Aesthetics." After teaching English for 11 years, the twice-divorced Baldwin, a mother of two, took a sabbatical because "I couldn't think of anything new to say."
That was when she decided real estate would give her the flexibility she needed as she became more involved in Olympic work.
"The market was terrible," Baldwin said. "It was an exciting challenge. I just plowed ahead. I did what I wanted to do."
There has been only one moment when Baldwin can remember ever pausing to worry about her next step. It was just after her mother and her father died.
"My parents both died before I was 20," Baldwin said. "I'd say at that particular period, life looked a little daunting. But I believe the strength that both of my parents gave me has carried me through. They were of the belief that you can sit in the corner and cry or you can get up and go on no matter what's ahead of you."