VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

(Photo Courtesy UVM Athletic Comm)

Nordic Skiing

Burlington/Stowe

Inducted 2019

A Burlington-native who was UVM’s first skiing NCAA champion, Larry Damon went on to be one of the first four-time Olympians from the United States.

He captured the NCAA individual cross country ski title in 1955, the first from UVM and the only Catamount to win a Nordic individual title for 21 years until 1976. Prior to UVM he was a four-event skier at Burlington High School. In 1951 he won the Vermont state high school slalom championship and came in second in the cross-country championship.

Several times a U.S. champion, he went on to race in two Nordic events in each of the 1956, 1964 and 1968 games, and competed in the biathlon in 1960 at Squaw Valley. 

Damon also developed the Nordic ski trails for the renowned Trapp Family Lodge and Ski Center in Stowe. In addition to ski racing, Damon was a strong road racer, finishing 10th in the 1962 Boston Marathon and in the same year, winning the New England Open Cross-Country Championship in Boston. 

Damon captained both the ski and fall cross-country teams in college at Vermont and as a senior in 1955, he was the recipient of UVM’s Wasson Athletic Prize, combining athletics and academics.

In 1999, Sports Illustrated selected Damon as one of the Top 50 Vermont athletes of the 20th Century, he ranked 14th among the Top 50 Vermonters. He was inducted into the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2010.