Good morning!
Today marks the return of Ian McCaw, a devout Baptist from Canada who went to grad school at UMass and got his first job working for the Hartford Whalers. When the Whale moved south, McCaw stayed in New England to be the athletic director at Northeastern. Five years later, UMass chancellor John Lombardi lured McCaw to Amherst to replace outgoing AD Bob Marcum.
McCaw was a hockey guy and during his first year on the job, the Minutemen posted their first-ever winning season in Hockey East. Not just hockey though, the football (8-4), lacrosse (13-3) and softball teams (39-15) all excelled. Even the baseball team had a rare winning record (26-19).
These were heady times on the flagship campus, but alas it would be McCaw’s only year in Amherst. In Texas, Baylor University basketball player Patrick Dennehy was murdered by teammate Carlton Dotson and during the investigation it came out that Dennehy and another player’s tuition were being paid for by coach Dave Bliss. It was a stinkfest — drug use, recruiting violations, illegal booster donations — and McCaw was called in to clean up the mess at the largest Baptist university in the world.
During McCaw’s tenure, the football program got as high as No. 2 in the AP Poll, the men’s basketball team went to seven NCAA tourneys and won the 2013 NIT and the women’s basketball team won two NCAA championships. It all came crashing down in 2016 when a sexual assault scandal forced McCaw’s resignation. Baylor president Ken Starr, football coach Art Briles and Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford also resigned.
Less than six months after he left Baylor, Liberty came calling. Located in Lynchburg, Va., Liberty was founded by the city’s native son, televangelist Jerry Falwell, and was succeeded by his son Jerry Falwell Jr. According to Wikipedia, it has a $1.43 billion endowment. Falwell wanted his sports teams to someday be as good as that other famous religious school out in South Bend. Last year, the men’s basketball team won the Atlantic Sun Conference and beat Mississippi State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The football team transitioned into an FBS program two years ago. They were 6-6 last year and are 5-3 coming into today’s game in Amherst.
Liberty is a 24-point favorite to beat UMass today at noon at McGuirk Stadium. Somewhere Ian McCaw will be watching and perhaps wondering what might have been had he stayed in Amherst.
The Breeders’ Cup resumes today at Santa Anita Park in California starting with the Filly & Mare Sprint at 2:55 p.m. and ending with the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic at 8:44 p.m.
The races won’t be impacted by the recent fires that have plagued SoCal, but officials are praying that all of the 97 horses going into the starting gate come off the track healthy. On Sunday, a 2-year-old filly named Bye Bye Beautiful became the 36th horse to be euthanized this year at the historic racecourse that opened on Christmas Day, 1934.
For bettors who play the name game, try the B.C. Turf Sprint. The race is wide open race and the field includes Eddie Haskell, Shekky Shebbaz, Om, and Stormy Liberal. That’s a 10-4-11-6 superfecta in case you’re feeling lucky.
At press time our man on Colrain Road, John Dobrydnio, was still perusing the Daily Racing Form. Last month, Dobrydnio lost his brother Myron, who was born with Down syndrome. He promised his mother he’d always take care of his little brother, and Myron lived to be 70 years old, 10 years longer than the average lifespan according to globaldownsyndrome.org.
The second annual Ray Brown 9K for K9 is Nov. 17 at 9 a.m. in the Wendell State Forest. The pre-registration fee is $30 and $35 the day of the race. The money will be used to help fund the regional dog shelter in Montague.
“We’ll have T-shirts for those who pre-register and runners that register the day of the race will get them on a first-come basis,” said race organizer Barney Collins. “We’re part of the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club (SMAC) race series this year, and that should attract a few more runners.”
USA Today’s Jeff Sagarin ranks the 1-7 UMass football team No. 219, last in the FBS and behind 88 FCS teams including URI. Ouch.
UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford made coach Walt Bell sound like the second coming of Bear Bryant during a halftime interview on NESN. “Walt’s the right man for the job,” said Bamford. “Walt’s been more than I ever could’ve imagined. He’s been awesome. He’s building the right culture from the inside out. It starts in the locker room.”
Apparently, what starts in the locker room stays in the locker room. “Competitively, we’re struggling this year,” admitted Bamford, “but I’m gonna tell ya we anticipated that.”
Yeah well, thanks for telling the rest of us. It’s the same spiel alumni and fans have been hearing since the program “upgraded” in 2012. Bamford said the new indoor practice facility next to McGuirk Stadium will help recruiting, but actually UMass lost its best recruiting tool when it forsook Gillette Stadium to play at McGuirk.
This might be the last year for Matt McCall to show he’s a better basketball coach than his predecessor, Derek Kellogg. After last year’s 11-21 season, McCall did a major revamp. He fired his top three assistants and sent more than half the team packing. He’s got three new players (plus the coach) from a Connecticut prep school, a Cleveland State transfer, a pair of 6-foot-3 freshman guards from Fort Myers and Louisville and two other freshman newcomers.
We’ll start to see the yield from the fruit of those changes shortly before tip-off on Tuesday at the Mullins Center. On my iPhone is a photo of last year’s team standing for the national anthem before the Fairleigh Dickinson game on Dec. 23. Three players have their hands on their hips, one is staring at the ground and another has his hood up.
McCall was standing near the bench, ramrod straight and hand on heart. He’d better get the others to show the same respect for team, school and country or it’s going to be a long season.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told WEEI that he expected to be making a bet on Tom Brady and the Patriots by January at the latest and perhaps as early as next month.
It’s good news for gamblers in Franklin County because Massachusetts has backed off sports betting. Sununu said he was “baffled” that the Commonwealth has become disinterested. “We’re going gangbusters up here,” he said.
Quote of the Week from UMass radio analyst Pete Brock, commenting on the debacle going on in the trenches during Saturday’s game against UConn: “You think hut-hut and it’s just a bunch of slobbering animals, but you gotta do your assignment,” said Brock, who was a first-round draft pick who played 11 seasons for the Patriots on the offensive line.
SQUIBBERS: Today’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile is sponsored by a company in Lexington, Ky., that manufacturers industrial fans. Hence the race is called the Big A** Fans Dirt Mile. … My bet today is on McKinzie, a four-year-old that was named after trainer Bob Baffert’s best friend, Brad McKinzie, who died of kidney cancer two years ago. “He didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him,” Baffert told the Paulick Report. “He was tough. I wish I could be that tough.”… Outside the Northfield IGA on Wednesday, Jake Dodge’s grandfather John Putala said he was happy that his grandson is back on the Frontier gridiron. According to Putala, a snafu in the transfer process from TFHS to Frontier nearly cost him an entire year of eligibility. … The Astros were heavy betting favorites to win the World Series, but as VSiN’s (short for Vegas Sports Insider) Jeff Fogle mentioned in the NY Post, the numbers were skewered by the millions that Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale bet on Houston to offset all the refunds he’d have to pay his furniture store customers if the Astros won the World Series. … One of the few bright spots of the UMass football team’s loss to UConn on Saturday was seeing Juco transfer Gilberto Torres getting mobbed by his teammates and the unbridled joy he showed after he scored his first touchdown in a UMass uniform. … On Sunday in the CBS broadcast booth at Gillette, Tony Romo said of the Browns’ third turnover against the Patriots: “One turnover is a lot in a quarter, two is ha-ha, and three just isn’t real life.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.