PINEROLO, Italy — American curler Scott Baird isn't just old enough to be his teammates' father: He's old enough to have curled with two generations of Pete Fenson's family and win national championships with both.

An alternate on the U.S. team, Baird is the oldest Olympian in the history of the Winter Games — 54 years, 280 days old when the curling tournament begins on Monday. British skeleton racer James Coates was 53 years, 328 days old when he finished seventh in the 1948 St. Moritz Games.

"I'm at the end of my career. This is a great way for me to experience the Olympics before I retire from competitive play," Baird said Sunday after the team's last practice at the Pinerolo curling venue outside of Turin. "I'm here to make sure everything's in sync on the team. With all my years of experience, I have a good feel for how the team should flow."

That experience includes three U.S. titles — in 1979 with Bob Fenson and 1993 and 1994 with Pete, Bob's son and the skip, or captain, of this year's Olympic team. Baird, who has been curling since 1961, also lost in the national semifinals three times and last year missed out on his third try to skip his own team in the Winter Games.

"I thought that was my last run at it," he said.

But when Pete Fenson's team won the Olympic berth, they knew just where to go for their alternate.

"It was a no-brainer to pick him," Fenson said. "We've known him a long time. Scottie had a lot to do with us being here now."

Baird might not get to throw a stone in Pinerolo. In the past, teams have inserted their alternates into blowouts so they could qualify for a medal, but the World Curling Federation changed its rule this year so even an alternate is considered a competitor.

So Baird can add Olympian to a list of accomplishments that includes last year's induction into the U.S Curling Association Hall of Fame. The hardest part of the games might be convincing the Olympic credential folks that he's an athlete, not an official.

"He's just like another coach. He's been around the game a long time," teammate Joe Polo said. "But he still likes to have a little fun with the kids."

Even so, the youngsters aren't too respectful for a little good-natured ribbing. Underneath that U.S. Olympic team hat is a thick helmet of silvery hair that is apparently the focal point of whatever generation gap exists on the team.

"I keep telling them that I'm prematurely gray," Baird joked. "They may want to keep later hours than I do once in a while. And they definitely eat more. I don't try to keep up with them."

On the ice, he can more than manage.

Baird was Pete Fenson's skip at his first couple of bonspiels — tournaments — and also played against the father of women's team members Jamie and Cassie Johnson. Courtney George, the 19-year-old women's alternate, curled against Nikki Baird, Scott's daughter.

Maureen Brunt knows Baird from Bemidji, Minn., the hotbed that is home to both the U.S. men's and women's teams.

"I'm glad he's here now. He's had a lot of success, and he deserves it," she said. "And he's still a great curler."

Although the sport is regularly lampooned as "extreme shuffleboard," the 21/2-hour matches of furious sweeping and sliding of 42-pound granite stones can be physically, as well as mentally, taxing.

"Not for a person like Scott," said Bob Fenson, the men's coach. "He's very dedicated and he's kept himself in good shape. And he's got a lot of muscle memory."

Baird replaces Coates in the books, and if the Americans can win a medal he can replace Max Houben, who was 50 when Belgium won the silver in the four-man bobsled in 1948, as the oldest winter medalist.

But Baird has a way to go before he can top Sweden's Oscar Swahn. The oldest summer Olympian, Swahn was 64 years, 258 days old when he won a shooting gold in the 1912 Stockholm Games.

Swahn came back eight years later, at 72, to win a silver in Antwerp, Belgium — his sixth medal over three games.

"We're going for it," Baird said with a chuckle.

Teammate John Shuster gave him a filial pat on the shoulder.

"One at a time, at your age."

AP-ES-02-13-06 0005EST