Karl Lindholm: Sports Illustrated emphasized the ‘writing’ in ‘sports writing’

The school was abuzz when I arrived. Students crowded around me, their enthusiasm barely contained. I was their English teacher and coach — and on this day in February 1975 their hero and exemplar. 

Karl Lindholm: Coach’s course puts sports and its lessons in context

Mike Leonard and Scott Langerman are friends — friends and colleagues. Together, they offered a Winter Term course at Middlebury College this January, “Sports and Society: How Sports Transcend Their Sidelines.” 

Matthew Dickerson: Monkton woman teaches Vt. youths to x-country ski

It was early January 2018, a year we actually had winter. Our Christmas present to our three sons that year was taking them and their significant others on a three-day, two-night, lodge-to-lodge cross-country ski trip at the Appalachian Mountain Club prop … (read more)

Matthew Dickerson: Eruption created awe

Vermonters may have woken up on June 6, 1912, thinking it was a normal day.

Matthew Dickerson: Winter walking in western Maine

There is something magical about sitting atop a ledge looking out over a lake, river, canyon or even just a swath of undeveloped landscape.

Matthew Dickerson: Reflections for a new year

“People learn best when information enters through their peripheral vision, out of the corner of their eye … through stories.” 

Karl Lindholm: Brooks was great, but where’s Ray?

Cornwall’s Roth “T” Tall, consummate Baltimore Oriole fan, opened the Rotary Club meeting at Rosie’s Restaurant with a eulogy for Brooks Robinson.

Matthew Dickerson: Looking back with hope on the past year

I will admit that it’s a bleak Monday morning. Between the rain and the low clouds, I can barely see the hills a half mile from my house. The nearby cornfield looks like one vast puddle.

Karl Lindholm: Mabrey earns athletic immortality at Middlebury College

In the tenth grade, Edie MacAusland started ski racing at the Franconia Ski Club. At a race at the Snow Bowl, she stole a bib and hung it in her bedroom “as a source of inspiration.” 

Matthew Dickerson: Waiting in the woods, and elsewhere

For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing the sitting-in-the-woods-waiting-for-large-game-to-pass sort of waiting.

Matthew Dickerson: Thankfulness about being in the outdoors

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in the woods lately in my annual attempt to harvest local free-range, antibiotic-free venison.

Matthew Dickerson: River surveys suggests damage to fisheries done by floods

“It was comparable to Tropical Storm Irene. We lost a lot (though not all) of the young-of-year age class.” Austin Galinat, a fisheries scientist with Vermont Fish and Wildlife, was giving me an overview of some of the results of the late summer and early … (read more)

Matthew Dickerson: Black bears and peregrine falcons mark the return of ubiquitous generalists

The number of bears I have seen this year — and seen evidence of around my house — gives testimony to our vibrant and growing black bear population.

Matthew Dickerson: Playful animals and an ancient tradition

Sometime — likely between 3,000 and 2,500 years ago — a Hebrew poet wrote a beautiful nature poem that has, thankfully, managed to survive the centuries, and has come to modern readers as Psalm 104. I say “thankfully” because for many years this ancient p … (read more)

Matthew Dickerson: Finding fresh air while cabin camping on Eklutna Lake

The rain was falling again. Alaska’s 2023 summer was beginning to feel a lot like Vermont’s.

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