Good morning!
When schoolboy football teams began playing each other more than once in a season, fans wondered if it would detract from the traditional Thanksgiving Day games.
The answer’s no, not if it’s Turners Falls against Greenfield. The rivalry’s been going strong since 1927, and the passion starts at the top with coaches Chris Lapointe and Mike Kuchieski.
It was no surprise that Lapointe was reluctant to take a knee in the closing moments of last week’s 35-8 win against GHS in front of 800 mostly partisan fans at Bourdeau Field. Lapointe, who graduated from TFHS in 1999, lost the last two Thanksgiving games he quarterbacked against GHS. Fifteen years earlier, Kuchieski graduated with back-to-back beatdowns against Big Blue on his diploma. The combined score of the two wins was 90-14.
That’s what fuels the passion, but school choice and low enrollment have changed the equation. Last week four former TFHS players — Jacob Sak, Xavier Carlo, Dylan Carlo and Nick Lyons — suited up for Greenfield, and former Pioneer head coach Glenn Wilson threw in his lot with Kuchieski.
After Pioneer suspended its football program, a half dozen Panthers players enlisted with Turners Falls in the program’s new cooperative. A seventh, Ryan Duclos, hails from Greenfield but was ineligible.
Listed at 6-foot-3, 250-pounds, Duclos watched last week’s game from the press box roof. “He was just cleared to play after his hearing this morning,” TFHS coach Chris Lapointe texted on Wednesday. “(He’s) going to be an addition to our defensive line for sure. Give us some fresh legs in there.”
Last week, Greenfield hung tough on its island beyond the hash marks until the volatile TFHS offense took charge in the second half. Stash Koscinski had finished taking tickets at the gate and was sitting in a golf cart with Claude Lapointe. He saw me reach for my notebook and said, “Call us Powertown.”
The Turners Falls faithful is still seething about the name change it feels was forced on them by people who’ve moved on to other causes in other towns. When PA announcer Bill Brown let the I-word slip on Friday he told the crowd it was unintentional. “You remember a team by one name your whole life, you tend to repeat it,” he said.
Stash owed me a scratch ticket from last year’s Thanksgiving Day game. It had been a tradition that started nearly 20 years ago with Shadow Bogusz, whose sons played at TFHS. I’d take Greenfield and he’d take Turners Falls, and we’d bet five dollars on the outcome.
When Shadow died, Stash took over and the year Turners Falls ended its nine-year losing skid he scratched off a $100 winner. Being the generous sort, he offered to take me to breakfast at Franklin County Tech.
Grumpy Stash told me to get the ticket from off the visor in his car. It was a loser, but Lapointe’s father won the 50-50 raffle. “I’m still behind more than 20 years,” he said, putting the wad of bills in his wallet.
I asked if his son had always been as intense as he is on the sideline. He nodded. “Always,” he replied. “Junior high, high school, college. Then I thought I could finally relax. (Shoot) that didn’t work out.”
“He’s watching film from the time he gets up till the time he goes to bed,” said his wife Kerri, who was celebrating her 39th birthday. Her father Doug was across the street listening on the radio and watching through the window of the home where she was raised.
In two months, Kuchieski’s team will get its chance to even the score in Greenfield. Perhaps by then a modest-sized grandstand will have been installed on the visitor’s sideline. Currently, there’s nothing, a void in an otherwise outstanding sports venue. “It’s an embarrassment,” said one GHS official during the season-opener against Woodstock (Conn.) Academy on Sept. 7.
The mayors’ office could write a grant to come up with the money. Some say it was a done deal, but that was years ago.
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Red Sox Nation will come out of its collective slumber on Friday when MLB’s Division Series begins. All eight teams will be in action and my guess is they’ll save the Red Sox for prime time.
The same grandstand seats that cost $6.25 for Wednesday’s makeup game against hapless Baltimore are selling for $149 on the secondary market and the price will go up if the Yankees slip past Oakland.
The Bombers are bloodied and bouncing off the ropes, but the Wild Card game’s at Yankee Stadium where the Yankees are 53-28. If Oakland wins, watch out, they beat Boston four of six this season. Lefthander Sean Manaea no-hit them on April 21, but the imposing southpaw is recovering from shoulder surgery and is out for the season.
The Red Sox played Houston and Cleveland seven games each and both foes prevailed four-games-to-three. They were 9-7 against the Yankees before the start of this weekend’s three-game series.
The prediction: Houston beats Boston in a seven-game barnburner and handles the Dodgers in six. You heard it here first.
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Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant told the Greenville News he felt he didn’t get a “fair shot” to keep his job. “Fair is where you tie a blue ribbon to a pig. It has no place in college football,” said former Pac-12 coach Rick Neuheisel, now a co-host on ESPNU Radio.
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After hearing that injured Rams cornerback Marcus Peters might play against the Vikings on Thursday, former NFL lineman and current analyst Ross Tucker was simply aghast. “You gotta be kidding me. The guy got carried off the field and he’s gonna play four days later? I would be personally embarrassed. That’s like soccer stuff.”
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After Tiger Woods won last weekend’s Tour Championship in Atlanta, Rhode Island’s Billy Andrade marveled to Chris Russo that Woods beat four golfers who are in the Top 21 in earnings. “He beat Tommy Fleetwood on Thursday, 65-69, Ricky Fowler on Friday, 68-72, Justin Rose on Saturday, 65-68, and Rory McIlroy on Sunday, 71-74. That’s Tiger in his prime. What he did is epic for the game.”
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SQUIBBERS: Greenfield’s Matt Kempf reports his father Skip is living in Wilbraham and playing softball in a fast-pitch league. “He plays for the Relics, 80-and-over or something.” … Fox Sports’ Chris Spielman, after he spotted Pat Mahomes’ grandmother at 49ers-Chiefs on Sunday: “My grandparents used to come to the games, the only difference is she’s having a Diet Coke and mine had the Winston Lights going.” … Longtime NFL columnist Peter King told Chris Russo that Josh Gordon is 100-to-1 to make it with the Patriots. … Virginia Tech was 40-1 to win the national championship before last week’s inexplicable loss to FBS weakling Old Dominion. Now, they’re 500-1. … Free-agent-to-be Bryce Harper says he’d be happy to stay in Washington, might be that .244 batting average. … “Warriors of Liberty City” is a fascinating look at youth football in the Miami ‘hood.’ … At Belmont Park on Sept. 21, Don Imus’s namesake The I Man won at 12-1 odds. … UMass goaltender Fille Lindberg did a back-flip during the team’s rookie talent show at Crumpin-Fox in Bernardston, the first of many times his teammates hope he’ll stand on his head. … October is bittersweet. It has the World Series, the NFL and college football. It has the NBA, the NHL and college hockey. It would be the best of all months if it didn’t fall off the cliff into November.
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached by email at sports@recorder.com.