Stephen Hardy

Stephen Hardy lives in Durham, NH, where he retired in 2014 as Professor of Kinesiology and Affiliate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. He worked in the sport industry across four decades: as a coach, a conference administrator, a club founder, and an NCAA faculty athletics representative. He taught sport management and sport studies courses at the University of Washington, Robert Morris University, Carnegie Mellon University, and UNH. He is a co-author of Sport Marketing (4E 2014) which has been translated into eight languages. His historical publications include How Boston Played (1982, 2003), the award-winning Hockey: A Global History (2018) with Andrew Holman, and numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews in academic journals and popular newspapers.

The deaths of two sons, Josh (1993) and Nate (2008), immersed Steve in the lived and written world of grief and grief support. Since 2018, he and his wife Donna have facilitated support programs for spouses/partners, siblings, and parents. Since 2022 he has written monthly blogs on grief, resilience, sports, and history. These topics are combined in his historical novels The Commissioner: A Sports Mystery and The Arena: A Sports Mystery, which trace a family’s experience the wounds of war, discrimination, and corruption in sports.