VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Photo Credit: Rutland Herald

Proctor

Mal Boright Media Inductee- sportswriting

Inducted 2026

Tom Haley is one of the most prolific journalists in Vermont history, while laboring as a full-time reporter, editor and columnist at the Rutland Herald since 1987. While games may be easy to cover, Haley has highlighted and showcased more with features and columns that stretch minds and hearts all across Vermont  At age 78 (in 2025) there is no slowing him down. He is well known for traveling the state, and its a good chance he has filed stories from at least half the of Vermont's cities, towns and villages.

He is an award-winning journalist, having captured the Vermont Sportswriter of the Year 10 times, tying for the most. Haley has been honored for his work by the Vermont Press Association, New England Associated Press, Vermont Basketball Coaches Association, Vermont Soccer Coaches Association, Norwich University, Devil’s Bowl Speedway, and the Vermont Chapter of the National Football Foundation. He was active with the Vermont Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association, including serving as vice president.

He is a 1965 graduate of Proctor High School and served four years in the U.S. Air Force from 1966 to 1970.  Haley returned to Vermont where he enrolled at VSU Castleton and began his sportswriting career at the student newspaper, The Spartan. He started his professional sportswriting career as a part-timer with the Claremont/Springfield Eagle-Times (1973-87), while also serving as a social studies teacher/athletic director at Fall Mountain Regional High across the river in Langdon, N.H. He served the afternoon daily paper as its full-time sports editor before jumping to Rutland. His byline has been a fixture in Rutland and throughout Vermont for close to four decades.

Haley has been inducted into the following halls of fame: the VSU Castleton Athletic Hall of Fame (2004), the Vermont Principals’ Association (2006), the PEG TV Community Television Hall (2023), and Springfield (Vt.) High Hall of Fame (2025). Haley is the fourth Rutland Herald sportswriter to be inducted in this hall joining the late David Morse and Mal Boright, and Ted Ryan. Boright was a founding member of the VSHOF and after his passing, media inductees are designated the Mal Boright Media Inductee.