Good morning!
Next spring on the Connecticut River in Gill, Northfield Mount Hermon School will christen its new boathouse. The $6.6 million facility includes a dock, reception area and viewing deck, plus space to hold 16 racing shells that cost upward of $11,000 apiece.
The rowing teams use a 10-mile stretch of the river to practice for regattas in Hartford and Cambridge, and alumni include Tessa Gobbo of the U.S. women’s team that won gold at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The ceremony will be led by Brian Hargrove, who on Sunday was installed as NMH’s new Head of School. Described by a colleague as a “front-line fundraiser,” Hargrove previously spearheaded multi-million dollar fundraising efforts at Mercersburg (Pa.) Academy and the St. Mark’s School in Dallas.
During his address Hargrove said that when D.L. Moody founded the Northfield School for Girls and the Mount Hermon School for Boys, “He demanded a different course from when private schools opened to serve a privileged class.”
NMH’s tuition is $63,500 a year, which apparently is slightly less than privileged.
Hargrove was educated at Gettysburg College, Texas State and Penn by way of St. Mark’s which is rated as the best private school in Texas by niche.com. According to a St. Mark’s periodical that was published in 1988, he was nicknamed Noch-master and his ambition was to retire at age 30.
“He was always talking and never knew when to shut up,” it said, and he was admired for his “honesty and consistency.”
Hargrove was hired to get NMH back on solid financial ground. “NMH has a lot of debt,” said John Alden, who was an interim CFO at NMH before the school named him president of the East Northfield Water Company (full disclosure: the columnist is a customer of the East Northfield Water Company). The name sounds quaint, like the Reading Railroad on a Monopoly board, but it serves 300 customers and it’s losing money. Consequently it has filed a petition with the Mass. Dept. of Public Utilities for a 147.2 percent rate hike that would phase in next spring if approved.
On Wednesday at Pioneer Valley Regional School, representatives of the DPU conducted a public meeting presided by Hearing Officer Kevin Crane. Ironically, the meeting had to be moved to Pioneer after a water main break closed the town hall. Crane said the DPU is composed of Charlie Baker appointees Matthew Nelson, Robert Hayden and Cecile Frazier, and the board will take six months to decide whether to approve or deny the rate hike.
This has opened an old wound from when NMH pulled roots and left the Northfield campus in 2005. During the meeting, NMH was repeatedly accused of negligence and indifference. “I have seen influence and trust turn to deep disappointment,” said Katherine Harris. “NMH is irresponsible.”
After Wednesday’s meeting ended, John Geary of the Attorney General’s office implied that the get-together was little more than a procedural farce. “You don’t get good decisions out of the DPU,” he said.
What this portends for East Northfield next spring is that while NMH officials are waxing poetic about their new boathouse, their former neighbors will be opening their water bills and feeling the hot air off the river.
The UMass Minutemen (0-3) host Coastal Carolina (2-1) of the Sun Belt Conference in a 1 p.m. kickoff today at McGuirk Stadium. The Chanticleers’ offense is anchored by CJ Marable, No. 1 in your program, who ran for 149 yards and scored both touchdowns during Coastal’s 12-7 upset at Kansas two weeks ago.
Coastal’s starting tight end is 6-4, 245-pound Isaiah Likely of Malden, who in 2016 helped Everett High School go 12-0 and win the D-1 Super Bowl. Backup tight end Shadell Bell is one of two Clemson transfers on the team, together with starting nose tackle Sterling Johnson.
The Chanticleers are best known for beating Arizona, 4-3, in the rubber game of the 2016 College World Series. Right-hander Andrew Beckwith, who led the NCAA with 15 wins, was the winning pitcher. Beckwith is currently pitching in the Royals farm system.
Marty Tirrell’s trial in Iowa has been postponed until next year. The one time local sports jock was arrested by the FBI in Des Moines last winter for allegedly swindling investors out of more than $1 million. The trial was set for April and moved to September, then moved to January after Tirrell got a new lawyer.
Winter is Coming Dept: The UMass-Lowell hockey team hosts Alabama-Huntsville at Tsongas Arena in two weeks, then plays defending national champion Minnesota-Duluth at AMSPOIL Arena on the shores of Lake Superior. The River Hawks and Minutemen won’t clash until Feb. 21-22, in what figures to be a battle of Hockey East titans.
SQUIBBERS: Lou Misiun sent a story from the Myrtle Beach Sun reporting that Chanticleers football coach Jamey Chadwell will present the team with a musket if they beat the Minutemen this afternoon. Chadwell better read up on the Mass. gun laws. … New Orleans Saints rookie Deonte Harris set the NCAA record for return touchdowns at Assumption College in Worcester. … The Indians, Rays and A’s could all finish at least 25 games over .500 and one of them won’t make the playoffs. A three-way tie and subsequent playoff would be delectable. … Charlotte, which beat UMass by 35 points last week, is a 41-point underdog today at Clemson. That would make UMass a 76-point underdog against Clemson. … According to the state payroll database, UMass coach Walt Bell is making $428,153 in fiscal year 2019. … Favored by 21 points, Boston College got crushed by Kansas last week, 48-24, at Alumni Stadium, ending the Jayhawks’ 48-game road losing streak against Power Five opponents. BC quarterback Anthony Brown wilts under pressure, and if running back AJ Dillon gets hurt it’s going to be a long season. Coach Steve Addazzio is said to be on the hot seat with AD Martin Jarmond. … BYU beat No. 24 USC last week and plays its season finale on Nov. 23 at high noon in Amherst, the same day and time that the UMass basketball team plays Virginia at the Mohegan Sun. … NBC reported last week that a California con man who was arrested for identity theft had worked in hospital operating rooms. He wasn’t nabbed until he tried to buy LA Clippers season tickets for $17,000 with a stolen credit card. … The Daily Racing Form reported that Saratoga’s attendance was down by more than 100,000 this summer. Some viewed the rain and heat that plagued the early days of the meet as karmic payback for NYRA more than doubling the price of general admission in five years. … Red Auerbach would’ve turned 102 yesterday. The former Celtics coach and GM always liked to light a cigar in front of the bench in the closing moments of a Celtics win at Boston Garden. “I’ll always think of a penguin with a cigar,” Celts GM Danny Ainge told Cigar Aficionado. … Reader Mike Ludden emailed the story of a dying Tennessee fan’s last request to have Volunteer football players carry his coffin to the cemetery: “So they can let me down one more time.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.