By the late 1960’s a young Mr. Vermont was splitting time between Manhattan, where he was fixture at Andy Warhol happenings and Velvet Underground gigs, and trouble spots around the world. Displaying a life-long knack for gaining access to unsettled regions, Mr. Vermont won his first Pulitzer Prize with errant dispatches from Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960’s.  (Although little known, he served as an early mentor for Hunter S. Thompson and was a model for those, like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Thompson and others, who are generally credited with founding the “New Journalism” school of reporting.)

Since then, his byline has graced reportage from around the third-world:  Viet Nam in the early to mid-1970s, (for years after the fall of Saigon, his were the only reliable dispatches from that country): Managua in the 1980s (his reports were the first to mention the then little known Iran-contra affair), and Sarajevo (during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s).  And these were just few of the places he’s lived and reported from in a long and storied career.

A career that has come, we might observe, at great personal expense.  For example, Mr. Vermont has contracted malaria (at least three times) in southeast Asia; suffered countless bouts of dysentery chasing stories throughout Africa and South America; narrowly survived a bout with encephalitis while living with armed guerillas in Peru; cerebral edema while waiting out a blizzard at base camp in the Himalayas reporting on the first American ascent of K2; and a nasty round of filariasis (otherwise known as “river blindness”) while covering the first full traverse of the jungle in Borneo.   To this day, Mr. Vermont often refuses to be seen in public (or have his picture taken), partly because of the permanent damage done to his face as a result of contracting what doctors only described as “something like Ebola” while reporting on the second Sudanese Civil War in the 1980s.

Throughout these travels, rugby has been Mr. Vermont’s constant and consuming passion.  (As you might imagine from the description above, he has never married and has, as far as we know, no children – thank God).  He introduced the game to the indigenous Aboriginal people of Tasmania while reporting on a National Geographic trek to catalogue rare and endangered vegetation in the Tasmanian outback.  He also organized the first league matches on the pampas of Uruguay (they soon expect to enter a team in World Cup play).  And, although he’s never explained the reason why (sort of like Jerry Lewis and Muscular Dystrophy – and sort of like the French and Jerry Lewis, now that we think of it), he’s maintained a special interest in Austin area rugby. 

For years, in addition to sending his missives to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the Los Angles Times, Vermont Life, Rolling Stone Magazine, and Harper’s for publication, Mr. Vermont has also published highly stylized descriptions of the matches played by the Austin Area High School rugby squad in the Westlake Picayune and the West Austin News.

As you might imagine, his schedule and travels (as well as the unfortunate condition of his face) often makes it impossible for him to watch the games in person.  However, his considerable and extensive contacts throughout the world-wide diplomatic community make it possible for him to receive match film, and forward his copy, via diplomatic pouch.  We are thrilled to learn that Mr. Vermont will continue to cover the AAHS matches, as well as the games of the new Westlake High School team.  We caught up with Mr. Vermont recently in Viet Nam while he was enjoying some well-earned R & R before returning to report on the continuing unrest in the Darfar region of western Sudan.  He had this to say about the exciting prospect of reporting on two Austin area rugby teams: