Back in the 90s, I worked in the same newsroom as Andy Gardiner at the Burlington Free Press. But we inhabited different worlds. I was a political/environmental reporter. At my end of the newsroom, we thought we were changing the world for the better every day - chasing politicians, administrators, and select board scofflaws.

Andy was a sportswriter - the real kind. He inhabited an entirely different part of the newsroom, a warren of desks dedicated to sports. His colleague Ted Ryan covered UVM hockey while Andy covered what seemed like everything else, especially basketball. 

What I mean by “the real kind’’ of sportswriter is that Andy was a precursor to sports talk radio and ESPN. Back then you had to read Andy to follow sports in Vermont, just like you had to read Red Smith to know what was really going on with the Yankees. And unlike the rest of us self-righteous political reporters, Andy didn’t think he was changing the world. He just loved sports and he loved the people who inhabited that world. So what better way to indulge that love than to hang around dug-outs and gyms all day, then top it off by writing about it every day?!

Andy and I were not close. Bad on me. The loss of Andy Gardiner at 72 is a reminder to get to know people better, to push into relationships more, and to understand other people’s worlds. 

Despite his intention, Andy Gardiner made the world better because he told real stories about real people and put those stories in a newspaper for all the world to see. 

Here is his obit from VTDigger.org, a news outlet that did not exist when he was writing but most certainly has a lot of Andy’s DNA.

I wish I had gone to see him. 

RIP Andy Gardiner.