Good morning!
Last week in this space UMass money man John Kennedy defended embattled athletic director Ryan Bamford, who I blamed for the football team’s terrible record (18-82) since he was hired.

Kennedy’s comments didn’t go over well on social media. “It must be a cold day in hell as I find myself agreeing with Chip Ainsworth on something UMass,” tweeted @FightMA247.

Paraphrasing for brevity’s sake, the pontificator added: “This mindset that major donors like Kennedy and Marty Jacobson who could make a difference is going to continue to hold UMass back… Ask yourselves, if those results were coming from one of your businesses, would you retain the manager in charge?”

Kennedy is the closest UMass has to a Larry Ellison, whose millions helped lure high school quarterback Bryce Underwood away from LSU to Michigan. A South Hadley native, Kennedy is set for life after parlaying his bachelor’s degree in math from UMass-Lowell and his master’s degree in accounting from UMass Amherst into a company that has reaped a small fortune.

Such is his largesse that his name is on buildings at both campuses.

Last February at his invitation, I joined him at the Tsongas Center to watch a Lowell hockey game. A posse of administrators met us in the lobby and were all smiles, from the chancellor on down. Flattering as it was, it’s hard to know the friends from the gold diggers.

Cracking the whip isn’t Kennedy’s style. He supports the decision makers no matter the results, and so while the critics may have their opinions, Kennedy has the cash and he can do whatever he wants with it.

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Bamford and his new sidekick the chancellor announced this week that UMass hired Rutgers defensive coordinator Joe Harasymiak to be the new football coach. Bamford let ESPN break the story without tipping off our own beat writer Garrett Cote, who followed the team to the bitter end.

Harasymiak will be following in the footsteps of other Bamford hires like Walt Bell, Don Brown and Matt McCall. Who am I missing? Right, Pat Kelsey, the hoops coach who backed out 30 minutes before his introductory press conference.

The Scarlet Knights were 79th in total defense this season under Harasymiak and UMass was 73rd under DC Keith Dudzinski.

Says one insider: “Looks good so far. Disciplinarian. Just what we need.”

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Speaking now of women’s hockey, Boston Fleet GM Danielle Marmer credits Gill native Kristin Steele with helping her learn the administrative side of the sport while she was Steele’s assistant at Connecticut College in New London.

“Kristin has a crazy number of assistants who are now head coaches,” Marmer told The Boston Globe’s Kat Cornetta. “They call her ‘The Coach Whisperer.”

Born and raised in Gill, Steele graduated from NMH and Maine where she was a four-time letter winner and three-time captain. She landed the Conn. College job after assistant coaching stints at Colgate and Niagara. She’s now in her 24th season coaching the Camels on the banks of the Thames.

“I was really fortunate to have her as a mentor,” said Marmer, a Vermonter who played at Quinnipiac. “There’s only two on a staff in a D3 program like that so she really had no other choice but to trust me and let me get involved in different parts of the game.”

The Fleet are one of six teams in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, the others being in Toronto, Montreal, St. Paul, Ottawa and New York (but play in Newark). The Fleet play at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, and tickets range from $25 to $77.

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More from high school historian Mike Cadran: “There were 115 Thanksgiving Day football games this year, by far the most of any state.

“Needham versus Wellesley dates back to 1882, the oldest Turkey Day rivalry in the country. Hoosac and Drury played 134 times from 1915 to 2024, Athol against Orange (now Mahar) dates back to 1894 and Turners Falls played Greenfield 95 times, all but three were on Thanksgiving.”

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Why does college football call it the two-minute timeout, and not the two minute warning? “We’ve been asked not to call it a warning,” ESPN’s Rece Davis told Awful Announcing.

A caller to Joe Benigno’s show on WFAN said the NCAA doesn’t like using “warning” because the word connotes violence.

Benigno found that hard to believe. “Really? No. This country’s gotta get its balls back. It’s on the way, but none too soon.”

The two minute warning dates back to the  1940s when the official time was kept by the ref on the field.

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Huck from Missouri on Mad Dog Radio: “I was never on board with this playoff expansion. You can have 50 teams but I’m gonna tell you, in the end it’s gonna be Texas, Georgia, Oregon and Ohio State. Make some money and sing Kumbaya, but in the end it’s gonna be the bluebloods.”

The CFP selection show is Sunday, and the top four teams get byes. The fun begins on Dec. 20 and 21, followed by the quarterfinals on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, the semifinals on Jan. 9 and 10 and the championship from Atlanta on Jan. 20.

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SQUIBBERS: Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield is suing his father James and brother Matt for transferring almost $12 million out of his account and into their corporate account. … Bill Belichick dined at Mar A Lago with Elon Musk, Sly Stallone and the Donald for Thanksgiving. …  At this writing the Pitt Panthers women’s team under former UMass coach Tori Verdi had lost four straight games by a combined 58 points to Kansas, Auburn, Northern Iowa and Duquesne. … Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has suggested using a “golden batter.” Not a pancake mix, it would let a team send up its best hitter whenever it wanted to, once a game. It’s sacrilegious to the sport and another example of why Manfred has been a massive disappointment. … Greg Bedard on the Patriots’ play-not-to-lose mindset: “This coaching staff is all-brake no-gas, especially when the game is on the line.” … The Bastards of Boston Baseball report that Red Sox season ticket renewals are down 7,000. What a departure from 2004 when season ticket sales were capped at 20,000. … The microphone didn’t work when the referee turned it on Saturday at McGuirk, broken from calling so many penalties this season. … John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks dropped out of the Top 25 after losing to Illinois last week. … The Colorado Avalanche rank 30th in goaltending, prompting the New York Post’s Larry Brooks to propose the Rangers trade two-time All Star Igor Shesterkin for Cale Makar. … NHL analyst Paul Bissonnette was back on the air and interviewing Brad Marchand after his run-in with six thugs in Scottsdale two weeks ago. Bissonnette couldn’t resist asking Marchand if he’d had a hair transplant and Marchand couldn’t resist answering, “I’m just trying to look like those guys who beat the wheels off you the other night.” … The Chairman of the Board, Francis Albert Sinatra, was born 109 years ago this Wednesday. Born in Hoboken and buried in Cathedral City, California, his gravestone’s inscribed “The Best is Yet to Come.”

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@icloud.com