In recent years, Middlebury athletics has dominated its competition. Since the fall of 2019 Middlebury sports teams have won 17 NESCAC Championships and seven National Championships. Most of this dominance has been recorded and preserved by one man: Middlebury athletic photographer Will Costello.
Costello has officially been working with the Middlebury Athletic department since 2006 when he first took photos during the men’s hockey team’s 2006 NCAA semifinal victory over Elmira College. Since then, Costello has increased his role with the team and has documented the countless successes of Middlebury Athletics.
Costello got his start in sports photography in the early 1970s when he took photos of World Hockey Association games. The World Hockey Association was a professional North American hockey league that competed with the NHL from 1971 to 1979. Costello saw beauty in the game of hockey and wanted to capture the sport.
“I was really drawn to the game because it was so athletic,” Costello said. “Just the motion and the movement of people in the athleticism was pretty phenomenal.”
After cutting his teeth in sports photography with the World Hockey Association, Costello moved to New England in the late 1970s. While he was not as much engaged with photography for about a decade, the dawn of digital photography in the mid 1990s rekindled his interest. Living in Ripton, Vt., Costello started to take photos of local events and Middlebury sports games, but he developed a particular interest in the Middlebury men’s hockey team.
The men’s hockey team dominated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, winning five straight National Championships from 1995 to 1999 and then winning three more from 2004 to 2006. While Costello initially took photos of the team for personal interest, the college asked him to officially take photos for the school in 2006. Since then, Costello’s role with the athletics department has dramatically increased.
“In a lot of the earlier years, I traveled around with the hockey team away games, you know, just about every game of the season, and then [Middlebury] asked me to begin doing some other things,” Costello said. “I've branched out. Now I do quite a few things with the exception of swimming and diving.”
Through this diversity of coverage, Costello has developed a new appreciation for a variety of different sports and teams at Middlebury.
“70 years ago I had no idea what lacrosse was all about, so I've come to appreciate that, and field hockey, even though the pace isn't quite as frenetic [as hockey], it's just such an art and style, especially the way it's played in Middlebury obviously,” he said.
As different sports teams start and end their season at Middlebury, Costello is almost always on the sidelines memorializing athletes and their performances. Because of the different schedules of each team, Costello is busy and has to stay flexible to accommodate each team.
“It’s a different rhythm in different seasons,” Costello said. “I’m sometimes shooting maybe four or five times a week. Sometimes doubleheaders.”
But Costello tolerates his busy schedule because he knows people value the work he is doing. He appreciates when parents or students email him or stop him at games to express their support for his photography. Costello sometimes makes slideshows or commemorative books for teams at the ends of their seasons, and it gratifies him when he sees people appreciate his work.
Now in his 18th year working with the college, Costello looks to maintain the aspects of his photography that have made him successful.
“My main efforts still is to get a single frame or series of frames that capture that story,” he said. “Things are going well, so I’ll stick with what I have until I'm convinced otherwise.”
