[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 130 (Tuesday, July 29, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4811-S4813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO JOHN CALDWELL
Mr. WELCH. Madam President, cross-country skiing is a sport enjoyed
by tens of thousands of Vermonters, including several Vermont
Olympians. Just about every Vermont ski area today has groomed cross-
country trails, and most schools and communities have cross-country ski
programs. Where I live in Norwich, VT, cross-country skiing is as
popular as riding a chair lift and skiing down. From our front door, my
wife Margaret and I can put on our skis and head out across a field and
into the woods, breaking our own track or following a snowmobile trail.
Many Vermont cross-country skiers today are not old enough to know
how the sport got its start because, before John Caldwell--often
referred to as the ``father'' of cross-country skiing--it was something
people did in Scandinavia that hardly anyone in America knew about.
That was until Caldwell wrote ``The Cross-Country Ski Book.'' It was
published by the Stephen Greene Press in Brattleboro in eight editions
from 1964 to 1987 and became one of the most widely distributed skiing
books published in the United States.
John Caldwell is an Olympian himself, competing in the 1952 Winter
Olympics in both cross-country and ski jumping. After graduating from
Dartmouth College, he went on to coach U.S. Olympic cross-country ski
teams in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1984. Although born in Michigan
and currently living in New Hampshire to be close to children and
grandchildren, for all intents and purposes Caldwell has been and will
always be a Vermonter; his ancestors arrived in the State in the 1740s.
He attended the Putney School in Putney, VT, where he met his future
wife Hep, and for more than three decades taught mathematics and
coached skiing at Putney, finally retiring in 1989.
To train for ski racing his students would run cross-country in the
fall and split firewood. He was demanding, but he was also a master of
dry humor, and his students were devoted to him. Above all, his goal
was to show them that learning the technique to be able to glide on
skis under one's own power
[[Page S4812]]
could be great fun. Several of them went on to ski in the Olympics,
including Bill Koch and his eldest son Tim who competed in four Olympic
games. His granddaughter Sophie won medals in multiple World Cup races,
and she and grandson Patrick competed in the Olympics. His son Sverre
served for nearly four decades as Nordic director at Stratton Mountain
School. His daughter Jennifer was the fastest woman of thousands who
competed in the country's largest cross-country ski race in 1983.
John Caldwell's contribution to cross-country skiing in Vermont and
the United States knows no equal. He brought the sport to Vermont, and
from there, it spread across the country. Just a few hundred yards from
where he lives today, in the winter, scores of elementary school
students can be seen practicing their cross-country technique on trails
around the old Dartmouth golf course.
Everyone who puts on a pair of cross-country skis today owes a debt
of gratitude to John Caldwell. Cross-country skiing isn't just a sport.
For those who love it, it is a passion--even a way of life. As Caldwell
describes in ``The Cross-Country Ski Book,'' it is a simple, graceful
way for just about anyone of any age to have fun gliding almost
silently across snow-covered fields and through woods and getting in
shape in the process. All Vermonters should be proud that, thanks to
John Caldwell, our State was the birthplace of cross-country skiing in
America.
I ask unanimous consent that an April 11, 2025, article in the
Brattleboro Reformer, entitled ``John Caldwell: He wrote the book--
literally--on cross-country skiing,'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Brattleboro Reformer, Apr 11, 2025]
John Caldwell: He wrote the book--literally--on Cross Country Skiing
(By Bill LeConey)
Hanover, N.H.--As the winter chill begins to fade and the
snow recedes from the slopes and trails of Southern Vermont,
it's a good time to look back on the history and legend of
one of the areas favorite sports and recreational activities:
cross-country skiing.
And that legend begins and ends with John Caldwell, who has
been hailed by cross-country ski enthusiasts as the
``father,'' ``godfather,'' even ``guru'' of their sport.
After all, he wrote the book on it: 1964's ``The Cross-
country Ski Book.'' It was the first time anyone had ever
written a guide in English.
``It's out of print now--it went through seven or eight
editions. It was a bestseller,'' John, now 96, said last
week. ``I think it sold over 500,000 copies. It's the only
reason I'm not in the poorhouse.''
Caldwell competed in the 1952 Winter Olympics and coached
the U.S. cross-country Olympic teams in 1960, 1964, 1968,
1972, and 1984. He also coached at the Putney School from the
mid-1950s until his 1989 retirement. Among the Putney
students and others that he coached were Olympians Bob Gray,
Martha Rockwell, Mike Gallagher, his son Tim Caldwell, and
Brattleboro's Jim Galanes, Stan Dunklee and Bill Koch, the
first American to medal in cross-country skiing.
Another son, Sverre, followed in his father's footsteps,
setting up the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) cross-country
program and the SMS Elite Team.
Caldwell, a longtime Putney resident, now lives in a
retirement community in Hanover, N.H., just up the road from
Dartmouth College, the school that he and all four of his
children attended and competed in cross-country skiing.
Caldwell says his first skiing recollections go back nearly
90 years, to the mid-1930s when his family lived in Somerset,
Pennsylvania.
``My folks gave me a pair of skis for some reason--wood, no
edges, and with toe straps. There was not a lot of snow in
town and I knew of no other skiers. I stepped into the skis
and started down this long hill in some fairly deep powder. I
coasted to a stop, fell out of the toe straps, picked up the
skis and climbed back up the hill. Next time down I went
farther because the trick was to follow the original tracks
and so I went faster. Fell down, found my skis, climbed back
and probably did one more trip. That was the end of the start
of my skiing career.''
In 1941, the family moved to Southern Vermont, where John's
father had gotten a job as a business manager at the Putney
School, a progressive boarding school that sits on a hilltop
dairy farm. Basketball had been John's sport of choice, but
Putney didn't have a team. It did have a downhill ski team,
which John's dad convinced him to join. The team went to a
state ski meet in the winter of 1945-46 and needed a cross-
country skier.
``I volunteered, got hold of my sister's five foot wooden
Alpine skis, adjusted the bindings to my very flexible
downhill boots (which also doubled as jumping boots) and I
was ready to go. We went off to the state meet and did well
enough to qualify for the New England Championships the next
weekend. I thought I should get serious about training for
cross-country and went out one day in the week preceding the
New England's. I got tired after a few minutes of thrashing
around and quit, went to the New England's and finished 48th
out of 52. Those three days on my sister's alpine skis were
the end of my high school cross-country career.''
Like many Vermont kids at the time, Caldwell learned the
four winter sports: alpine and cross-country skiing, ski
jumping and biathlon, and competed in all four when he went
on to Dartmouth. For the first time, he got a real pair of
cross-country skis and a bit of instruction. As a senior, he
went to a Nordic combined ski meet, a mix of ski jumping and
cross-country. He beat some guys who'd made the Nordic
combined world championship team. ``So I tried Nordic
combined the next year and made the Olympic team in '52.''
Caldwell said he was not well-prepared for his first
Olympic experience. His last-place finish (out of 22
competitors) at the Games in Oslo, Norway gave him the
incentive to make sure no American would ever suffer that
kind of disappointment again.
Over the next 20 years, after returning to the Putney
School as a math teacher and coach, he pulled together a
legendary cross-country team that included his son Tim, as
well as Bill Koch. In 1972, Caldwell's team pioneered the use
of one-piece uniforms. In 1976, Koch won Olympic silver in
the 30 kilometer race and still holds the speed record for
that event. ``In the 1980 Olympic relay, we had my son Tim,
Bill Koch and two Brattleboro boys, Stan Dunklee and Jim
Galanes. At the time, there were only 37 members of the
Putney Ski Club and membership was $1.''
Caldwell also helped coach U.S. biathlete and two-time
Olympian Willie Carow of Putney, Dan Simoneau and National
Geographic explorer Ned Gillette. ``I always tried to make it
fun,'' he said. ``One summer I got together a group of skiers
(including Gillette) and we hiked the Long Trail, end to end,
in nine days--hiking out to friends' houses to stay overnight
then back to the trail so we wouldn't have to carry gear.''
Galanes, a three-time Olympian and 12-time national
champion in cross-country and Nordic combined, said Caldwell
was a ``really great coach, not so much being a hands-on
coach, but working on technique skiing, thinking differently
about training, trying new things. Bill Koch was a great
innovator, but part of that innovation stems from Bill's
relationship with John Caldwell and Bob Gray and all the
other people around. It fostered in us an ability to really
think and question and challenge what we were doing. We
certainly didn't always get it right but we were always
thinking about it.''
John and his wife Hester--``Hep,'' for short--naturally
made cross-country skiing a big part of family life, putting
their four children on skis even before they started walking.
``They would ski around on the rugs in the living room. They
liked that.''
Sverre says it was never a high-pressure thing--even with a
high-profile dad.
``I don't remember going, `Oh, my dad's a big deal skier,''
said Sverre, 70, who now lives in Peru, Vermont. ``We just
kind of all did it as a family. In elementary school, he
built a trail so we could ski down to school. It was probably
about 10 kilometers, but mainly downhill. And back then we
really didn't race much at all. I'm sure I never beat my
older brother (Tim) in a race. My younger brother Peter and I
would go back and forth, but I don't remember it as being a
big stress point at all.
``I'm lucky in that I never felt any pressure or
anything,'' says Sverre, who is now retired from coaching and
teaching at Stratton. ``It was just like I was brought up
doing it. I enjoyed doing it. I actually was not a great
competitor, but then in college I started helping coach a
little, and I loved it, so I learned coaching. The sport's
been good to me. I've enjoyed it all.''
Tim Caldwell would go on to compete in four Olympics,
finishing sixth at the 1976 Winter Games in Austria. Sister
Jennifer, who passed away in 2011, won the American
Birkebeiner, the largest cross-country skiing race in North
America.
John's nephew, Zachary, is the founder of Caldwell Sports
and a leader in cross-country ski training and equipment.
Zach and his wife, Amy, operate West Hill Ski Shop in Putney.
But no one has kept the Caldwell Olympic connection going
more than Sverre and wife Lilly's daughter, Sophie, who
graduated from Stratton in 2012 and became the third Caldwell
to ski in the Winter Olympics, in 2014 in Sochi, Russia. She
was in position to contend for a medal midway through the
final of the freestyle sprint when she collided with a fellow
competitor, causing her to crash and finish sixth.
Sophie got her first victory in the World Cup during the
2016 edition of the Tour de Ski. She won the classic sprint
in Oberstdorf, Germany in 2016, becoming only the second
American woman with a World Cup victory, and the only one
with a classical win.
It's all very gratifying to the matriarch of the family.
``It makes me feel good,'' says John, who is working with
Sverre and Zach on an ``addendum'' of sorts to his book,
detailing changes in equipment and techniques over the last
25 years. ``And I'm happy that my kids and grandkids and
nieces and nephews have taken up the sport.''
[[Page S4813]]
He's also happy that they've stayed true to his ``main
pitch'' about cross-country skiing, as outlined in page 7 of
the third edition of his ``bible'':
``Cross-country skiing should be fun for everyone,''
Caldwell wrote. ``The range of possibilities for enjoyment is
unlimited. You can ski anywhere there's snow, you can use a
wide variety of equipment, you can ski alone or with a group,
you can use the very best technique while wearing the clothes
you just picked up from the local rummage sale, or you can
wear the latest styles and invent your own technique. So pick
out and use anything you want from this book--but most of
all, have fun skiing x-c. Make it be your thing.''
It certainly has been Caldwell's--and his family's--
``thing'' for nearly a century.
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