Good morning!
The wild west of college athletics began on July 1, 2021, when pay-for-play became the law of the land. Enter Pat MacWilliams, a successful businessman and Maryland native who arrived in Amherst in 1997 to open Five College Movers.

MacWilliams isn’t a UMass grad and didn’t have any prior connection to UMass, but something clicked. “I had no interest until I started listening to Jack Leaman on the radio,” he says of the former coach and analyst who died in 2004.

The 38-year-old MacWilliams loves the sporting life. Nothing compares to standing in the winner’s circle at Saratoga or courtside at UMass. He moved to the Spa a few years ago, but remains connected to Amherst.

He initially dipped his toes into the name-image-likeness waters by signing three athletes — basketball players Noah Fernandes and Samantha Breen and hockey player Bobby Trivigno — to small-time exclusivity deals worth between $500 and $1,000 with incentives up to $10,000.

Today the Massachusetts Collective has 350 members and over a dozen businesses committed to helping the men’s and women’s basketball programs succeed. “We’re 100 percent UMass basketball focused,” says MacWilliams.

“Our deals total $200,000 and we’re looking to double that next year. Getting more businesses involved means producing more revenue. Hannoush Jewelers is a partner and we had every UMass player there and they each had a minor contract.”

MacWilliams compares himself to baseball executive Billy Beane, whose success keeping the Oakland A’s competitive was chronicled by author Michael Lewis in “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”

MacWilliams sees Donovan Clingan playing for $710,000 at UConn and Robert Dillingham getting $800,000 at Kentucky and admits, “There’s no way we can compete with them, we just want to be in the top tier of the A-10.” 

Matt Cross, Josh Cohen, Jaylen Curry and Robert Davis Jr. are signed to NIL deals totaling $160,000. Cohen’s deal is “by far the biggest,” and the agreements strive to mold on-court performance with off-court community outreach.

“We don’t just have them post on social media. We present them to the community. Josh does Cohen’s Corner after games. He’s 6-10, well spoken and good with the kids. I remember when I was a kid thinking these guys were gods.

“Robert Davis Jr. is great in the community. Matt Cross is awesome. He’s great, his family is great. He’s got a year left but who knows.”

It doesn’t always work out. He had hoped that 6-11 center Wildens Leveque would stay to give Cohen a breather under the basket but the Brockton native transferred to Texas A&M and is averaging three points and two rebounds for the slumping Aggies who play at No. 5 Tennessee today.

The real crusher was losing guard RJ Luis Jr, who was a three-time A-10 rookie of the week for UMass last season. “We offered RJ $100,000 and thought we had him. We’d already announced it but then we didn’t hear from him and I started getting nervous.”

Luis was poached by St. John’s University, which at this writing had lost eight of its last 10 games under pouty coach Rick Pitino. (Schadenfreude runs deep in college athletics). “I think RJ’s probably getting $250,000. Some people say it was tampering but that’s just business. I can’t blame him. Who wouldn’t want to play in front of 20,000 fans at Madison Square Garden?

“There’s a lot of frustration and failure. Villanova has $3 million this year and they stink, there’s no be-all, end all.”

Athletic director Ryan Bamford and chancellor Javier Reyes have both endorsed the Collective. “Ryan was hesitant at first but now we’re in lockstep. He’s gotten to know the intricacies.

“Javier Reyes seems to be everywhere. He’s been to practices and comes to our post-game events. He wasn’t doing keg stands, but he was there and he was engaging.”

“Our goal,” says MacWilliams, “is to be on the leading edge in the A-10. My expectation is to win a couple of games in Brooklyn (at the A-10 Tournament) and get every player to come back, add a piece or two through the NIL and have a special season next year.”

Someone should give that guy an honorary degree.

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Next month the 1942 Turners Falls High School baseball team will be inducted into the Western Mass. Baseball Hall of Fame, together with coach Earl Lorden.

Lorden was inducted into the UMass Athletics Hall of Fame in 1982 for taking the ’54 team to the College World Series and winning 193 games from 1948-66.

The Powertown’s George Bush is the last remaining living player from the ’42 team and confirmed why Lorden was regarded as a “gentleman’s coach.”

“He was very pleasant,” says Bush. “He taught U.S. history. Sometimes he’d leave class early and take a few of the players to work on the field. When we were through he’d turn and say, ‘Now if you make any mistakes you can blame yourselves.’”

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What happened at Conte Forum last Sunday is another reason why UMass should leave Hockey East for the ECAC. The Minutemen came back from a 3-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead, but before you could say “stacked deck” the refs whistled two Minutemen off the ice and BC scored two power play goals for the win.

According to a reliable source, a Hockey East official who was at the game “profusely” apologized to coach Greg Carvel. The refs — Alex Berard, Steven Rouillard, Kevin Briganti and Robert Griffin — turned a close game into a farcical version of pro wrestling on ice.

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Stephanie Olchowski who played for the BC Eagles women’s team from 2005-09 took her family to last Friday’s game against UMass in Amherst. “She went with her husband Eric and their two sons Colton and Hank who both play in the FCHA,” wrote her uncle Charlie Olchowski. “She and the BC men’s coach Greg Brown were friends at BC and he invited the boys into the locker room before the game. It must have been quite an experience for them.”

Steph’s father Greg was also in the crowd

Charlie goes to the games with Shelburne’s Robin Logan and Greenfield’s Eric and Jeanne Greene — Section T if you’re looking for them.

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