[P]UTNEY — John Caldwell is the Vermonter who literally wrote the book on cross-country skiing. His trailblazing 1964 how-to guide, simply titled “The Cross-Country Ski Book,” is what the Boston Globe calls “the bible of the sport.”
Caldwell kept updating the text until the eighth edition 30 years ago. Now 89, he’s entitled to sleep in. But the man considered the father of U.S. Nordic is also the grandfather of 2018 area Olympians Patrick Caldwell, 26, and Sophie Caldwell, 27. That’s why he’s rising before dawn this month to watch the third generation of his family compete in the Winter Games.
“Can’t sleep through the night,” he says. “Old age. And I have to stoke two wood stoves.”
So much has changed since Caldwell himself competed in the 1952 Olympics, when a lack of television coverage required family and friends seeking results to await the newspaper the next day.
“That was back in the dark ages,” he says only half-jokingly. “When I was racing, nobody knew much about cross-country, and people hardly knew we were there. Everything is much, much better than it used to be. All this ease of communication has helped.”
Caldwell has assisted, too — by turning his lowest point of adversity into a lifetime of achievement.
Some Vermonters may remember his Oslo Winter Games as the ones where Rutlander Andrea Mead Lawrence became the only U.S. woman to win two skiing gold medals. But while the late female legend experienced the thrill of victory, Caldwell felt the agony of defeat.
“I was on the combined team — cross-country and ski jumping — but I was poorly prepared.”
Born in Detroit in 1928, Caldwell had moved to Putney with his family in 1941. When his high school needed a cross-country racer for the 1946 state championships, he strapped on his sister’s wooden alpine skis. Continuing on to Dartmouth College, he borrowed his coach’s slats before the school bought him a pair.
Caldwell tried out and made the 1952 Olympic team. Knowing little about proper training, he toured too many Norwegian eateries. The onetime 145-pound athlete weighed 170 by the time he dressed for his event. But that wasn’t why he needed help buttoning his shirt. His shoulders ached from falling so much in practice.
The rest is history — just not Olympic history.
“That really inspired me to help better prepare athletes,” he says, “so they wouldn’t be so flummoxed, overwhelmed and thoroughly thrashed.”
Caldwell started by coaching at his alma mater, the Putney School, where he worked with such up-and-coming skiers as Bill Koch, the first U.S. Nordic athlete to win an Olympic medal (silver in 1976). That, in turn, led him to help the American team in a succession of Winter Games.
Off the job, Caldwell befriended the late Brattleboro publishers Stephen and Janet Greene.
“They said, ‘Are there any books on cross-country?’ I said no.”
Soon there was one, which he updated until its eighth and final edition in 1987.
“It sold over 500,000 copies,” the author says. “It promoted the sport and kept me out of the poorhouse.”
Caldwell also nurtured cross-country by helping found the New England Nordic Ski Association and by forging a family with his wife, Hep. Their four children have carried on the tradition: Tim competed in the Olympics in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 and is the father of Patrick. Peter raced undefeated in college. Jennifer made the U.S. ski team. And Sverre coached the Americans in 1988 and is the father of Sophie.
John Caldwell says his sport has changed in his lifetime.
“At the 1972 Olympics I was head coach and had 10 guys. No help. Zero. This year I heard the Norwegians have 31 wax technicians. And nobody traveled much in my days. My mother and father came up to Dartmouth Winter Carnival once or twice. There wasn’t so much parental influence, this Little League syndrome.”
That said, Caldwell has been waking in the dark this month to watch live South Korea races that, because of a 14-hour time difference, have started anywhere between midnight and 7 in the morning. The hours are no more punishing than how he pushes the latest generation of family skiers.
“I joke with them, ‘Are you suffering?’ I spell and say it ‘s-u-f-f-a-h.’ It sounds masochistic, but that’s the way it is. When you do it you hurt, but you feel great afterward — like when you stop hitting your head against the wall. All of us must be nuts, but it’s a lifestyle, a culture.”
It’s the same for the spectator back home.
“It takes me a long time to recover from these early mornings.”
Even so, the grandfather of 10 still straps on skis.
“I shuffled around once this year. I may go out again — I’ll see.”
Caldwell has to check with his replaced shoulder, hip and knees and his new plastic heart valve.
“The surgeons said, ‘John, this one will last you.’”
So goes life. So much “s-u-f-f-a-h-ing.” So much satisfaction.
“I’m bionic,” Caldwell says, “and still plugging along.”
