Middlebury College Ski Team Patch, Felt — c. 1940s-50s

A vintage Middlebury College Ski Team patch from Vermont, estimated to date from the 1940s or 50s, worked on cream felt in pale blue chain stitch — a varsity shield with notched shoulders, MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE stacked across the top, SKI TEAM split either side of a single ski crossed with a pole.

The construction is the date. Chain stitch laid straight onto felt, with the shield simply cut out and no border applied, is how varsity patches were made before merrowed edges and twill grounds took over the trade. That puts this a generation earlier than most of what is in this catalog — in the years when college skiing was the top of the sport in America and the fastest people in the country were racing each other on weekends in front of forty spectators.

The Eastern carnival circuit ran on cold mornings, long drives and start numbers pinned over three layers of wool. You raced alpine and nordic in the same weekend, at mountains four hours apart, and then went back and sat an exam on Monday.

This got sewn onto a team parka and stayed there. That is why so few of them ever come loose.

The schedule was brutal and nobody who did it has ever described it as anything other than the best winter of their life, which tells you something about either the sport or the people it attracts.

Chain-stitched on felt, cut edge, no applied border. Photos are the condition report.