Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Norwich
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: FL
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
Writer at the New York Times
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Graduated from University of Southern California.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist and sportswriter. Savannah News-Press, Savannah, GA, sports reporter; New York Times, New York, NY, sports reporter, 2005–.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Karen Crouse is a journalist and sportswriter. She graduated from the University of Southern California and served as the first female writer in the sports department at the Savannah News-Press. After working for a half dozen periodicals, Crouse began working as a sportswriter for the New York Times in 2005.
Crouse published Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town’s Secret to Happiness and Excellence in 2018. The account centers on the small town of Norwich, Vermont, which has produced eleven Olympic athletes from a population of 3,400 people. Crouse chronicles the lives of these athletes, showing how they came to be Olympic athletes and their post-Olympic careers. She also looks at the demographics and dynamics of the town to query how the ‘Norwich Way’ can be used as a model for other towns. Among the athletes profiled are ski champion sisters Sunny and Betsy Snite, ski jumpers, Mike Holland and Jeff Hastings, mogul skier Hannah Kearney, runner Andrew Wheating, and snowboarder Kevin Pearce. Crouse pays particular attention to the roles of parents and the community at large on these athletes.
Writing in Washington Post Book World, Fred Bowen pointed out that “Crouse is a reporter, not a sociologist. While she cites studies and books to support the idea that the ‘Norwich Way’ is the best, she concentrates on the lives of Norwich’s athletes. She’s a good storyteller, and the stories make her point.” Bowen concluded that “with her small but timely book, Crouse has given parents of young athletes a great gift—a glimpse at another way to raise accomplished and joyous competitors. Perhaps the more important question is: Will parents, dreaming of college scholarships and Olympic glory, bother to listen?” In a review in Christian Science Monitor, Kevin O’Kelly reasoned that “the lessons of Norwich are inspiring and compelling, but the book also includes occasional instances of truly awful writing. Most often, Crouse’s style is competent and workmanlike. But she is enamored of cliches and sometimes remakes them in cringe-inducing ways.” O’Kelly remarked that “Crouse seems so besotted with the town that it makes one automatically distrust her. Can any town be so perfect? One can’t help but feel Crouse lacks perspective.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews claimed that Norwich “is a reminder that in an age that stresses winning at all costs, the true champions of the Olympic world are those who transition into lives as happy and productive adults.” A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that “this important book highlights what’s wrong with youth sports by focusing on a community that gets it right.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Christian Science Monitor, January 25, 2018, Kevin O’Kelly, “‘Norwich’ Is the Town That Grows Olympians.”
Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2017, review of Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town’s Secret to Happiness and Excellence.
Publishers Weekly, October 16, 2017, review of Norwich, p. 60.
Washington Post Book World, February 26, 2018, Fred Bowen, review of Norwich.
ONLINE
NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/ (March 18, 2018), author profile.
Karen Crouse
Karen Crouse is a graduate of the University of Southern California,
where she earned a varsity letter in swimming. She started her
newspaper career at the Savannah News-Press, where she was the first
woman to grace the sports department, and worked at seven other
dailies before being hired by the New York Times in 2005. Her first
book, on a small Vermont town's secret to raising Olympians who are
happy, healthy and productive people and performers, will be
published by Simon & Schuster in January of 2018.
Karen Crouse
Karen Crouse is an award-winning sportswriter who has been on the staff of The New York Times since 2005. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California. Norwich is her first book.
How a town of less than 3,000 produced 11 (mostly well-adjusted) Olympians
Fred Bowen
The Washington Post. (Feb. 26, 2018): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Fred Bowen
Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's Secret to Happiness and Excellence
By Karen Crouse
Simon & Schuster. 276 pp. $26
---
"Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's Secret to Happiness and Excellence" is a small book with a big message.
Here, Karen Crouse, a New York Times sportswriter, examines how an out-of-the-way place with a population of about 3,000 has produced 11 Olympians, including two medal winners.
Norwich's secret, according to Crouse, is the opposite of today's overheated youth-sports culture with its early specialization, travel teams and expensive individual coaching. The parents in Norwich allow their children to sample a variety of sports, emphasize participation more than achievement, and let their kids find their own way through trial and error.
Crouse is a reporter, not a sociologist. While she cites studies and books to support the idea that the "Norwich Way" is the best, she concentrates on the lives of Norwich's athletes. She's a good storyteller, and the stories make her point.
Ironically, the family that started Norwich's incredible run of Olympic success was the opposite of the Norwich Way.
Albert O. Snite would have fit in with today's helicopter sports parents. Snite drove his two daughters, Betsy and Sunny, to be champion skiers. He required the girls to train year round and removed them from school for long periods of time for national and international competitions.
In one painful episode, Crouse describes how the father reacted when Sunny, his younger daughter, offered to give up skiing to care for a horse that a relative had offered to the family. "'You are going to ski,' he told her, 'come hell or high water.'"
In some ways, Snite's obsessive drive paid off. Betsy made two Olympic teams and won a silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley in 1960. She also placed fourth in the giant slalom. Sunny, on the other hand, fell short of her father's Olympic dreams after a skiing accident injured her back. Crouse makes it clear that Sunny used the injury to step away from the intense pressure of competitive skiing.
But skiing success came at a great cost to the Snite sisters. Betsy became a hard partier when she was away from her father on the European ski circuit. She died at age 45 after years of struggling with alcohol addiction. Sunny moved out West, rarely returned to Norwich and suffered through three abusive marriages. Her father died without ever meeting any of her husbands or either of her children.
The lesson was not lost on the inhabitants of Norwich. As Crouse writes, "The Snite sisters produced wonderful ski results, but no one in town wanted to raise their children to be like them."
The other Norwich stories are happier. Two families - the Hastings and Hollands - produced five Olympians in ski jumping and Nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing). The adventures Crouse describes as the boys encourage and inspire one another to improve and help each other survive will make anyone jealous of this happy band of brothers.
When asked how he raised three Olympians out of five children, the Hollands' father, Harry, observes, "Maybe some of the success of the boys was because we kept out of the way."
"Norwich" offers other lessons: Felix McGrath did not specialize in any sport. He was a four-sport athlete in high school who made the 1988 Olympic team as an alpine skier. Andrew Wheating was a decidedly mediocre basketball and soccer player who discovered a passion for track during his junior year of high school and became an outstanding middle-distance runner.
Even the less-than-happy stories seem to reinforce the Norwich Way. Freestyle skier Hannah Kearney failed badly in her first Olympics. She felt she had let the town down. But the people of Norwich did not turn their backs on her. They helped her financially and emotionally, and she bounced back to win gold in 2010 and bronze in 2014.
Kevin Pearce was a high-flying snowboarder who was ready to challenge Shaun White as America's best on the flat board. A terrifying crash and head injury shortly before the 2010 Games left him in a coma for 10 days and forced him through a grueling rehabilitation. Although he has lingering effects from the crash, Pearce now speaks on behalf of people with traumatic brain injuries.
Crouse makes it clear that after the false start of the Snite sisters, the remaining Norwich Olympians have grown to be happy, well-adjusted adults. Some continue to contribute to the town's sports programs and inspire younger athletes.
An obvious question hovers over the book: Can the Norwich Way be transferred to other communities?
Crouse, who rented a house in town for five months while researching the book, admits that Norwich has certain built-in advantages. Dartmouth College is in the next town. There are plenty of open areas for kids to explore and play. And the median household income in Norwich is $89,000, much higher than the national median of $56,000.
Still, Crouse suggests that these advantages are not as important as the attitudes of the people of Norwich. After all, nearby ski slopes are not much good unless you have an organization such as the local Ford Sayre ski program, which encourages all kids (and especially girls) to enjoy skiing as a fun, family outing.
Wheating, Crouse observes, would not have made the Beijing Games and become an NCAA champion if he had been cut from his youth-sports teams at a young age and told he was not good enough. The Hastings and Holland boys would not have flown as far as they did if their parents had discouraged their love of a dangerous sport and micromanaged their careers.
With her small but timely book, Crouse has given parents of young athletes a great gift - a glimpse at another way to raise accomplished and joyous competitors. Perhaps the more important question is: Will parents, dreaming of college scholarships and Olympic glory, bother to listen?
---
Bowen writes a weekly kids' sports column for The Washington Post and is the author of 22 books for children.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bowen, Fred. "How a town of less than 3,000 produced 11 (mostly well-adjusted) Olympians." Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528950258/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=da0a04ca. Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528950258
'Norwich' is the town that grows Olympians
Kevin O'Kelly
The Christian Science Monitor. (Jan. 25, 2018): Arts and Entertainment:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Christian Science Publishing Society
http://www.csmonitor.com/About/The-Monitor-difference
Full Text:
Byline: Kevin O'Kelly
Norwich, a hamlet with a population of 3,414 nestled in the hills of northern Vermont, seems at first glance a typical New England small town. Colonial buildings line the main street. Farms ring the outskirts. But in at least one way, Norwich is an anomaly: Since 1984, it's been represented on almost every US Winter Olympics team. Two local athletes have also gone to the Summer Olympics.
"Statistically improbable" doesn't even begin to describe the likelihood that one small town could produce this many Olympians. It's true that the snowy winters and the local practice of getting children started skiing and ice skating before they're 6 make Norwich a natural training ground for winter sports - but that's true of countless New England towns.
New York Times journalist Karen Crouse finds the roots of Norwich's Olympic success in a simple paradox: Its young athletes are taught that there are more important things than winning.
In Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's Secret to Happiness and Excellence, Crouse describes a local parenting culture that focuses on children's personal development rather than success. In an age when many children with outstanding athletic talent are pushed by parents to specialize, the youth of Norwich, no matter how gifted, switch to other sports with the change of seasons. And on local kids' teams, everyone willing, not just the best, gets to play.
The roots of Norwich's athletic culture arguably can be traced to Ford and Peggy Sayre, who founded a local ski academy in the 1930s. The Sayres not only admitted children of families who couldn't pay fees or buy equipment, they also encouraged local girls to attend.
The Sayres' coaching emphasized improvement. To get better was, in and of itself, success, a philosophy similar to that of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics - "the important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle." This de-emphasis on winning, and the idea that athletes compete only with their prior performance, is one of the keys, in Crouse's view, to Norwich's production of world-class athletes.
The other is local support. Crouse recounts innumerable touching examples of Norwich's community spirit. According to Crouse, Michael Holland, a ski jumper in the 1984 and 1998 Winter Olympics, got his start in the sport when his slightly older neighbor, Jeff Hastings, dropped off his outgrown jumpingequipment at Holland's home, saying, "You need to try this."
When Hannah Kearney, winner of a gold medal for mogul skiing at the 2010 Winter Olympics, was a teenager, she needed financial help to attend national skiing competitions. A millionaire with connections to the town offered to pay on two conditions: She was to provide detailed accounts of her expenditures, and she was to send him her grades every semester. Kearney recalls, "It was all about my report cards - not my ski results."
Crouse also cites literature on child development that indicates Norwich does have lessons for the rest of the country, from the pressure-cooker high schools that routinely send graduates to the Ivy League to overly competitive soccer moms.
The lessons of "Norwich" are inspiring and compelling, but the book also includes occasional instances of truly awful writing. Most often, Crouse's style is competent and workmanlike. But she is enamored of cliches and sometimes remakes them in cringe-inducing ways. (It was "love at first flight" for a young snowboarder.)
Another problem: Crouse seems so besotted with the town that it makes one automatically distrust her. Can any town be so perfect? One can't help but feel Crouse lacks perspective.
To be fair, she does, for contrast, recount the lives of the Snite sisters, who, driven by their obsessive father to devote their youth to skiing, achieved some success but led troubled, unhappy lives.
However, Crouse seems oblivious to the larger questions raised by Norwich's uniqueness: She readily admits it is overwhelmingly white (88 percent) and prosperous (the median household income is $89,000).
Social cohesion of the sort Crouse describes is most common in racially homogeneous communities, particularly ones in which families have lived side by side for generations. As the town gentrifies, and as its inhabitants are increasingly newcomers who will soon move somewhere else to further their careers, Crouse asks herself, "Can Norwich continue to be Norwich?"
She should consider the reality that racially and economically homogeneous small towns increasingly belong to our nation's past and not its future. A better question would be: Could a more diverse town become a Norwich?
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
O'Kelly, Kevin. "'Norwich' is the town that grows Olympians." Christian Science Monitor, 25 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A524988399/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a6284c41. Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A524988399
Crouse, Karen: NORWICH
Kirkus Reviews.
(Nov. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Crouse, Karen NORWICH Simon & Schuster (Adult Nonfiction) $26.00 1, 23 ISBN: 978-1-5011-1989-7
In her debut, a New York Times sportswriter explores why a small town in Vermont has become the
"perfect incubator for developing the ideal Olympic athlete."
Norwich has the distinction of being a town in which "one out of every 322 residents is an Olympian."
Crouse examines the story behind this remarkable record of athletic excellence, beginning with a profile of
sisters Sunny and Betsy Snite. In the 1950s, their relentlessly competitive father pushed both girls to
become ski champions. His "parent-driven medal-or-bust model" drove a permanent wedge between the
sisters, made them unhappy, and kept both isolated from members of the Norwich community. The author
then examines how more contemporary Norwich families have helped nurture well-adjusted champions.
Nonjudgmental parental support allowed Mike Holland and Jeff Hastings to pursue their quirky, sometimesdangerous
passion of ski jumping in the 1970s and '80s. An emphasis on becoming a well-rounded athlete
able to play soccer and run track helped mogul skier Hannah Kearney keep a hypercompetitive drive in
check while laying the foundation for the medals she won in 2010 and 2014. Growing up without
expectations that he would ever be an athlete, Andrew Wheating was able to find a joy in running that led
him to become a member of the U.S. Olympic track and field team in 2008 and 2012. Loving parents and a
supportive community helped Winter X Games snowboard champion and Olympic team prospect Kevin
Pearce move beyond the traumatic brain injury that ended his career. Crouse's common-sense findings--that
Norwich parents "praise effort, not results" and give their children "ownership of their lives"--all within a
tightly knit community that values healthy living--are refreshing. Her book is a reminder that in an age that
stresses winning at all costs, the true champions of the Olympic world are those who transition into lives as
happy and productive adults.
An inspiring story of a unique town.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Crouse, Karen: NORWICH." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A514267633/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=47bc4a10.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A514267633
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1520201278321 2/2
Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's
Secret to Happiness and Excellence
Publishers Weekly.
264.42 (Oct. 16, 2017): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's Secret to Happiness and Excellence
Karen Crouse. Simon & Schuster, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-1-5011-1989-7
Norwich, Vt., emerges as an enviable town out of time in New York Times sports reporter Crouse's
charming first book. The wealthy southern Vermont town has produced 11 Olympians since 1956, and
Crouse reveals the town's secret to raising successful athletes early on--"a deep aversion to pushing its
children too hard too soon"--and offers a loose blueprint for other communities to follow. Norwich's
agrarian culture, Crouse writes, encourages parents to provide hands-off support for their children in a
variety of athletic pursuits, and coaches consider themselves to be educators rather than "emissaries
assigned to deliver children to the ranks of professional sports." The kids, meanwhile, value participation,
sportsmanship, and fun above winning. Crouse unpacks all this in chapters that read like individuals profiles
of the town's successful athletes, such as mogul skier Hannah Kearney, who credits her Olympic success to
the small town, and distance runner Andrew Wheating, who didn't even take up the sport until high school.
Short and sweet, this important book highlights what's wrong with youth sports by focusing on a
community that gets it right. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town's Secret to Happiness and Excellence." Publishers Weekly, 16 Oct.
2017, p. 60. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A510652910/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=403fb518. Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A510652910