We used to call them the flower boys, or the glory boys. You know, the guys that collect all the recognition for the hard work done by others, collect the huge paychecks and have kids mauling them for autographs.

A Thanksgiving Day without football is like mashed potatoes without the gravy!

Do you remember your Pop Warner football days, Little League moments or Biddy Basketball games long ago?
I have many memories of my games as a child, and others I covered as a photographer for The Telegraph. Some are good ones, and others I’d rather forget, if I could. For me, it’s not the games themselves that stick in my head, but the events surrounding them. Unfortunately, we don’t get to choose which memories to keep, or forget.

There are many positives to growing up in a small town. The opportunities are more plentiful for athletes where the populations are larger, but the sense of community and closeness of friendships is stronger where I grew up, in Whitehall, Wisconsin.

It wasn’t all that many years ago when I remember my friends back in Wisconsin practically worshipping the ground Brett Favre walked on. In fact the city of Green Bay sold it. When I interviewed for a photo editor job at the Green Bay Press Gazette in the mid-1990’s, Lambeau Field was being cut up into pieces [...]

Faster than a speeding bullet…Stronger than a freight train…Can leap tall buildings in a single bound! What if your child is taller than a flag pole…smarter than the average eighth-grader, and is struggling to single out just one sport to play?
When I was younger it wasn’t that hard to make it on the sports teams with [...]

I’ve photographed and read about people named #1 sports fans in their communities, but I have never met one who inspired so many people, lived to help others, and suffered through cancer so much, as my father, Duane Hammerstrom.

 
He was nicknamed the first “Hammer” in the family. I am the second, and my son, Brandon has [...]

With a pool of blood in front of me, on the middle of Elm Street, I stood on the sidewalk and photographed Nashua police officers taking pictures and measurements for hours, as they investigated what appeared to me as a pedestrian accident with a car, behind Nashua City Hall Friday morning, May 2, 2008. But who [...]

You probably have some collecting cobwebs in the basement. Or, maybe you use them now as book markers. Full of pinholes and scribbling from your youth days, just what are those old ticket stubs, programs and pennants worth on ebay?
As a child, I collected the stubs and souvenirs from the few big league games my parents were able to take [...]

Was it that embarassing trip on the athletic field, or the mismatching socks you wore on the court that gave you your first nickname? Maybe it was that “athletic” crew cut, or your hunter orange hair that labeled you from birth.
It’s funny how a nickname sticks with you all your life, at least with the friends who [...]