Good morning!
The UMass Collective announced this week it was ceasing NIL operations. Its mission was rendered moot after the House vs. NCAA antitrust settlement in 2025 allowed colleges to pay players directly. Thus ends the noble effort by founder Patrick MacWilliams to help UMass basketball by finding and paying players like Matt Cross and Josh Cohen.
“Everyone wants to win at UMass, but it hasn’t come to fruition,” MacWilliams said from Saratoga on Wednesday, where he was hot walking a filly trained by Ray Handal, Valtellina who raced in yesterday’s Shuvee Stakes.
“Ray trains my horses,” said the 40-year-old owner of Five College Movers. “He thought I was joking but finally said, ‘Ok, show up at 5:30 Monday morning.”
MacWilliams is a man for three seasons— Saratoga in the summer, UMass football in fall and basketball in winter. Last year he put a sizable wager on the football team to win the MAC championship but it didn’t quite work out.
Next month he’ll be sending his 2-year-old filly Hammer’s Nickel to the starting gate. “I named him after Kenny Berestka of Hadley. He’s nicknamed Hammer and he always plays the five in Keno at the Young Men’s Club and the American Legion.”
At its peak, the Massachusetts Collective had 350 members and over a dozen businesses committed to helping the men’s and women’s basketball programs. “We had a good hot streak when NIL was new and we had Matt and Josh. We raised over $1 million, that was a lot in my mind, but you look at other schools and we were kinda behind.”
MacWilliams thanked Amy Gallant at Hannoush Jewelers in Hadley and Scott Sarat at Ford of Northampton. “They were absolute ride or die who’d do anything. If we had ten of them we’d be in a great spot.
“Unfortunately UMass doesn’t have corporate relationships. MassMutual maybe? It has to figure out how to bring in a fan base — and getting corporate sponsorships is huge.”
No worries Pat, AD Ryan Bamford’s $395K man Thorr Bjorn is clinking glasses and working megadeals.
Bottom line, said MacWilliams, “I wanted to become a fan again. I’ll still work with them and give them money but from the NIL standpoint I was burned out. Nationwide there’s donor fatigue, especially when you don’t win.”
****
After a recent column about getting two parking tickets in Springfield after enjoying Indian pudding at the Fort in Springfield and the city’s no-chance appeals process, two readers recommended trying it at the Deerfield Inn.
Donning my critics disguise I parked near the post office, went in through the side door and spotted a corner table in a darkened part of the tavern. Two tables away a hostess was whispering to Kyle Gutkowski, the Inn’s owner and innkeeper. Looking somewhat shocked, she came over and said, “I just finished this.”
She handed me a Deerfield Inn postcard with an Indian pudding recipe on the front and her message on the back: “Hi Chip, I would like to invite you to Champney’s for a complimentary Indian pudding.”
No kind of math or statistics class could’ve prepared me for this kind of coincidence. Let’s just say it was weird. I thanked her and said I looked forward to judging the Inn’s pudding with the Fort’s.
The hostess who’d recognized me was Mel Cussan, the daughter of John and Caroline Abercrombie.
“My father still has the story you wrote about him,” she said.
“About the skunk?” I asked, and she nodded.
One night when we lived in Deerfield, John spotted a skunk in his yard and drilled it between the eyes with an apple, killing it and making for a good column item.
Now as for the puddings. The Fort’s was thick and dark and Champney’s was tan and smooth, like a puree, and the flavor was enhanced by maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger. I’ll give it the blue ribbon, not just for taste but for postcards to parking tickets.
****
It was reported here last week that a three-year-old colt named Deerfield broke his maiden at Horseshoe Indianapolis and paid $10.20 to win. The horse’s owner Roy Jackson and his wife Gretchen live in Pennsylvania and Jackson went to St. Paul’s in Concord, New Hampshire, so there I didn’t think the name had any connection to the academy.
That was until Jim Smith emailed to say that Jackson’s three boys went to Deerfield Academy. “All three played for my dad, thus the name of the horse.”
Jim Smith coached at Deerfield for 36 years, then at Tech and Mohawk and now lives at Providence Place in Holyoke with his wife Carole.
****
On his Monday podcast Ross Tucker said he played soccer until he got into high school. “I liked soccer, but the first day I played football I ran into somebody and knocked them over and I was like ‘Oh, yeah! Oh yeah! Soccer is good but this is better!’”
Tucker was an offensive lineman at Princeton and then played in the NFL for five teams in seven years including the Bills and Patriots.
****
After my grandson Chase’s ballgame last spring I walked past the home plate umpire who was putting his gear in the trunk and noticed his faded Shea Stadium T-shirt.
“I grew up in Queens and worked there after I was old enough,” he said. “When the season ended they never threw anything out. It all went in the freezer. One spring before opening day I grabbed a box of hot dogs and said to my boss, ‘John these hot dogs are green!’ He said, ‘Just throw ‘em in hot water, they’ll pink right up.’”
That folks is a reason to buy pretzels, not hot dogs.
****
SQUIBBERS: The Keene Swamp Bats will be giving out free bobbleheads on Wednesday before their regular season finale at Alumni Field. Gates open at 5 p.m. and the first pitch is at 6:30. … Who says the cost of living is steep in New York City? A photo op at Fan Fest with Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson cost only $937. … BSN’s Greg Bedard on the NFL’s best guards: “Bruce Matthews (Houston/Tennessee), Randall McDaniel (Vikings) and Larry Allen (Cowboys) are the best that I ever saw, and my dad talked a lot about John Hannah with the Patriots and Gene Upshaw with the Raiders.” … NY Post betting analyst Michael Calabrese says watch out for Memphis after FedEx deposited $25 million into its college football treasure chest. … People who put dog poop in green plastic bags and drop it on the sidewalk need to go back to school. … Former UMass football and basketball announcer Bob Behler is entering his 19th season as the radio voice of the Boise State Broncos. … England’s 6-4 win over France was more fun to watch that Spain’s dominant 1-0 win against Argentina. “It’s like an All Star game,” said Fox analyst Owen Hargreaves. … Alaska Anchorage hockey coach Eric Rud to CHN’s Adam Wodon on one difference between coaching up there to down here: “If you get a flat tire outside of Cleveland, it’s a lot easier than getting a flat tire outside of White Horse.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@gmail.com.