Leland Anderson, 43.

 

Former Attleboro High star Leland Anderson (34) as a PC Friar.

The Attleboro area sports community lost one of its titans this past week with the death of former Attleboro High basketball standout Leland Anderson, 43, of lung cancer.

Full details are still lacking, but a post Sunday on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) by Anderson's former coach and Attleboro's athletic director, Mark Houle, provided sufficient confirmation of Anderson's death. It has since been further confirmed by other sources.

"I am saddened to hear of Leland Anderson's passing," Houle wrote. "My prayers go out to Leland, his family and teammates. He had an amazing personality and passion for basketball. (Attleboro's) all-time leading scorer and leader in our 1998 State Championship season. RIP #34."

Leland Anderson

Anderson, a 6-foot-8 frontcourter with superior shooting range for a big man, finished as, and remains, Attleboro’s all-time leading scorer of either gender with 1,629 career points in 74 games starting in his freshman season (1995-96). Although he played center for most of his high school career, he was even more comfortable playing away from the basket and was projected as a potential 3 or 4 player in college.

A three-time Sun Chronicle all-star (1996, '97, '98), Anderson reached the pinnacle of his high school career in his junior year. He scored 674 points (27.0 per game) that season, and he and fellow junior Derek Swenson (17.8) were the driving forces behind the Bombardiers' 25-1 record, Eastern Athletic Conference championship and eventual victory in the Division 1 state title game against Central/West champion Milford.

In that title game at the then-Worcester Centrum on March 14, 1998, Anderson scored 29 points and had 14 rebounds, Swenson scored 11 of his 16 points during the second half, and Jason Case, a senior co-captain, came off the bench to total seven rebounds and four assists. The Bombardiers used a 15-point run at the start of the second half as the springboard to a 63-58 victory, earning Attleboro its first state title in 55 years.

The victory had added significance because, just 10 days earlier, a horrible natural gas explosion destroyed a house on George Street. Two well-known city workers, Lawrence Poncin and Bernard Hewitt, perished in the explosion. Their deaths cast a pall over the city as the MIAA Tournament began, but Attleboro High's victory in the title game was credited with restoring joy to the city's residents in the wake of the tragedy. A complex of athletic fields off Oak Hill Avenue was named in the memory of Poncin and Hewitt.

Anderson also played AAU basketball for the BABC program led by famed coach Leo Papile, and that drew a lot of national attention to a player that might otherwise would have been overlooked because of the suspect level of his high school competition in the EAC. The result was Anderson being recruited by national power Michigan before his senior year.

The 1998 Attleboro title team.

But that's when Anderson's fortunes started to reverse themselves. Five games into his senior season, he suffered a painful thigh contusion that resulted in the formation of calcium deposits, and he was advised to sit out the remainder of the season. The Bombardiers did their best to overcome the loss of their leading scorer, reaching a sectional final against Bridgewater-Raynham at Taunton High before bowing out of the tournament, three wins shy of a repeat championship.

Injuries continued to plague Anderson when he arrived in Ann Arbor, and he missed a stretch of 10 straight games early in his freshman campaign because of back problems. He played in just 16 games as a Wolverine, averaging 2.1 points and 1.4 rebounds, with a career high of 8 points against Western Michigan on Nov. 27, 1999.

Anderson transferred to Providence College after that. He sat out a year per the NCAA rules of the time, but injuries continued to dog him once he donned the Friars' uniform.

He played just 40 games for the Friars, averaging 2.7 points and 1.6 rebounds in the 2002 and 2003 seasons, hitting a career-high of 14 points against Virginia Tech in 2002. He left the team following the end of the 2003 season despite having one more year of eligibility.

He moved to California and played semipro ball briefly in Long Beach, Calif., for the Hollywood Fame of the American Basketball Association, a developmental league that was sort of a last-chance opportunity for players trying to work their way up to the NBA. He also flirted with professional wrestling in the WWE, but achieved a different level of fame as a documentary filmmaker.

Anderson is listed as one of the three screenwriters (with Chris Bell and T.J. Mahar) of a documentary film called “Trophy Kids,” directed by Bell, that appeared on HBO in 2013 and is currently available on Prime Video. Here is the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) synopsis:

“From the director of ‘Bigger Stronger Faster’ comes an intense look at overbearing parents in sports. The film asks the question ‘Do we want what's best for our children? Or do we just want them to be the best?’ Parts of this film were used in the premier of Peter Berg's HBO series State of Play.”

Anderson holds the second-highest single game performance in Attleboro High history, hitting 42 points in a game during his junior year.

Anderson's death is the second to strike deeply at the heart of the Attleboro High basketball community in recent years, following the passing of Rebecca Hardt in August 2022. Hardt, who was 46, finished with 1,221 career points (fourth overall at AHS) from 1990-94. Hardt's death came only a short time after the passing of her father, David, who was a top athlete at AHS in the 1960s and a high draft pick of the New England Patriots as a tight end out of Kentucky. Dave Hardt's career tragically ended in the first game played at Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro, a preseason game against the New York Giants, as he suffered a severe knee injury on a half-opening kickoff.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 57

There's always room for more video podcasts, so I produced another one earlier this week and am finally getting around to putting up links. Here's After Dark 57 for your enjoyment.

It's a simple episode, in which I talk about how I almost landed myself in YouTube jail -- just watch the episode, it will explain everything. I also talk about my latest medical checkup (99 percent good news!), the new "swag" that really takes my branding to the next level (aren't I really sounding like an influencer now?), and my expectations for another great few weeks of summer basketball locally.

It's all from the friendly folks at Duck and Cover Productions, where we put the "con" in content. At least I'm not asking you to pay money for it.

The difference between wearing a sports uniform, and earning it.

Once the rarest of rare items, team jerseys are now available to just about anyone.

I had an interesting "discussion" the other night with a friend that used to work in sports media many years ago. I'd call it an "argument" instead of a discussion, because it did get a little emphatic at times, but I'd prefer to call my interactions with my old friend "discussions" to avoid the connotation that there may have been ill feelings involved. I like her too much for that.

The "discussion" revolved around how modern-day fans of pro sports teams have what I believe to be too much investment in their teams, and that they don't really understand that there should be more of a separation between professional athletes, who have earned their status on the fields of play, and those that can only experience the athletes' success vicariously.

The topic came up because, in a phone call, she sounded a little surprised that I did not bother to watch the Celtics' victory parade through Boston following their 18th NBA championship. I told her that I've never been interested in such things, probably because most of Boston's championship parades happened during the period of my life when I was a professional sports journalist, and the rule of thumb for that was to maintain distance between being impartial and having a rooting interest.

The closest I ever got to participating in one of those duck boat rallies was after one of the Patriots' early Super Bowl victories, when I arrived home at Logan Airport at about the same time as the rolling rally was making its way through the streets of the city in 20-degree cold. Fortunately, the parade was nowhere near the tunnels and Southeast Expressway headed southbound, and thus I avoided being trapped amid the merriment.

My bosses never asked me to cover one of those things, probably because they knew I disliked being in the midst of unruly crowds -- and also because I had made it clearly known that I thought those events were not appropriate for serious journalists to cover. I wasn't even remotely interested in playing catch with Tom Brady as his duck boat rolled by. I didn't feel any need to make myself part of the story. Besides, I'm pretty sure I would have dropped the pass.

If that sounds a little snooty of me, so be it. At least I'm consistent. I believe in the separation of Church and State, and I believe even more in the separation of the playing field and the cheap seats.

One thing that really irks me is the proliferation of replica pro sports uniforms in the stands -- and, it goes without saying, in the streets along these championship parades. Nothing rubs me the wrong way more than seeing a 350-pound man in his 50s trying to squeeze into an undersized Tom Brady replica No. 12 shirt for which he probably paid a dollar a pound. But I'm equally miffed at looking down from the press box into a crowd of 60,000 people and seeing maybe four-fifths of those people wearing some sort of replica jersey.

I'll tell you why.

Me in my Post 93 uniform.

I earned the right to wear two sports uniforms in my lifetime -- the baseball uniforms of Mansfield High School and the Foxboro Post 93 American Legion team. And, given the limited scope of my abilities, I had earned both by the skin of my teeth.

My first Mansfield varsity uniform was a hand-me-down that dated at least to the early 1950s. I was one of just three players relegated to uniforms that weren't even as current as those worn by the JV team, because the school ordered too few uniforms and I wasn't as good as the players that were told they could wear the new uniforms. The only saving grace was that my uniform was No. 9 -- Ted Williams' number. 

The next year, I earned one of the "real" varsity uniforms, and wore it proudly. I'd like to say I made No. 12 a Boston-area icon long before that skinny kid from Michigan did, but at least I wore it -- sort of like Steve Kuberski's No. 33 for the Celtics before the Hick from French Lick made it his.

For the Post 93 team, I wore three uniforms -- Nos. 11, 19 and 23. I got to keep No. 19 after my last season because the Legion post was buying new uniforms for the next year, and I had that for a long time before giving it to someone that needed something warm to wear for a cold night on the Cape. I never saw it again.

Point being, I earned those uniforms. 

I grew up a Red Sox fan first and foremost, and yes, I hoped that someday I'd grow up and be able to wear one as a member of the team. The Talent Gods ruled otherwise, and I accepted my fate, entering a new career in sports journalism knowing that it was not my place to be wearing the uniforms of the people I covered. The only way I hoped I could reach across that divide was that, on the day I retired as a beat writer covering the Patriots, I hoped they would present me with a jersey with my name on the back and the number stemming from the number of years I covered them. I never would have worn the shirt, but I would have framed it and hung it in a place of honor.

Alas, that tradition ended a long time ago. The last reporter I know to have been given a jersey was the late Dick Cerasuolo of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, who covered the Patriots from their inception in 1960 to his retirement at the start of the 2000 season. When I retired in 2018, the Patriots got me a cake and a football autographed by all of the media members on the beat at the time. Like Brady's footballs, I sometimes have to pump up that ball a little to keep it at an acceptable PSI level.

But I will admit, when I was in high school, I spied a small ad in The Sporting News, which I used to buy religiously, that piqued my interest.

It was from the KMPro Co., a hat manufacturer in Boston that provided most of the major league teams with their official caps. They were offering the real caps, not cheap replica knock-offs, for sale -- the same caps as worn by the players, sized for personal fit, for the ungodly sum of $20 (including shipping) in 1970. That would be about $175 today, adjusted for inflation.

Je me souviens: Les Expos.

So, I bought one. But I didn't buy a Red Sox hat, nor that of any more tradition-rich team. It was the tri-color chapeau of the Montréal Expos, still a relatively new expansion franchise, selected because I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. It had the full leather forehead strap and the delicately woven embroidered logo -- the latter of which caused no limit of consternation to those that, unfamiliar with the Expos, couldn't figure out what the "elb" in the front of the cap meant. 

I loved that cap and wore it a lot. And when a rainstorm shrunk my cheap woolen Post 93 cap well under my 7⅜-inch hat size, I started wearing it in my Legion games. I was proud to wear that hat, even though it would still be about five or six years before I would see Les Expos in person.

I also bought two "Starter" satin warmup jackets in the late 1980s, one for the Chicago Bears and one for the San Francisco 49ers, because they reminded me of my high school letter jacket (which I had outgrown) for their comfort and warmth. A few years later, I had "outgrown" those (mostly in the belly area) and I gave them to my father, who didn't follow pro sports and just enjoyed having nice jackets to wear in his retirement years.

And that's the extent to which I ever wanted to wear pro sports paraphernalia. I got my share of free hats and shirts and other knick-knacks from the Patriots in 42 years of covering them. I put the key rings to use and maybe stashed a t-shirt away for work around the yard, but most everything else I gave away. I've bought a few baseball caps in later years -- a blue Expos cap to replace the worn-out tri-color, an Orioles' cap bought at Camden Yards, a few Washington Nationals hats because I loved their use of the old Senators' "W" on front (but those are now on the shelves because red caps look too much like MAGA identification). But when I bought a traditional Red Sox cap after their first recent championship and wore it to a Patriots' training camp practice, I took so much shit from my fellow reporters that I stashed it away and don't even know where it is today.

I have never bought a replica jersey for any team, however, and I would never have worn it in public even if I did. It would seem the same as sacrilege. I didn't earn that jersey from giving my blood, sweat and tears to the team it represents. I have no right to it.

Does this guy really think
he played for the Chargers?

Growing up, I saw those uniforms as the ultimate symbol of achievement. They were the rarest of rare things, not to be worn by mere mortals. And I still feel the same way today. It turns my stomach to see someone that would require two seats on an airliner wearing Brady's jersey, knowing that the most athletic thing that individual does is raising a fork to his mouth.

A few years back, Sports Illustrated did an article on the topic of how attitudes have changed over the last 40 years over public accessibility to authentic pro uniforms. The writer spoke to numerous researchers and psychologists and came away with the conclusions that fans have a burning need to feel invested in the teams they support because of the high cost of following them. Whether it's season tickets (a small fortune), game-day parking and concessions, or even as simple as the markups to your media bills for viewing packages, fans feel the need to take their loyalty up to another level and to personally identify with those teams by wearing the same uniforms -- as if they are also members of the teams because of their personal investments in them.

I keep trying to tell fans that the teams really don't love them the same way in return. The teams USE them. They take the money gleefully and often promise a return on the investment by promising championships, but those promises are rarely fulfilled. And if things turn bad, fans will boo despite their professed love -- and players will say harsh things to the media about how their fans should support them more. It's just human nature.

What's more, the prices go up every year, and the fans foolishly dig deeper and pay. 

I'm not one of those people who will tell you that people should not be spending money so that billionaire owners can pay their players millions of dollars to play a kid's game, and then have the owners coercing taxpayers to spend more money for their billion-dollar stadiums. If I was, I wouldn't have had a job for 42 years. Sure, it sounds like a horrible misappropriation of funds, especially when food costs too much and other basic human needs are ignored because they can't get funding. Here in Massachusetts, we reached a compromise with that cycle because Robert Kraft had to spend his own money to buy the team, and then a lot more of his own money to build the stadium and later renovate it, although he did get a good chunk of change from the state to fix the parking lots. All that helped make Kraft a much richer man that he already was, but fans got their desired return from their investments in the form of six Super Bowl championships and two decades of consistent contention for championships.

A lot of people elsewhere in this nation get bilked out of their money by team owners, but at least the Patriots have given them something back. But it's always short-term love. Just think back to how fans roasted former coach Bill Belichick on social media and sports-talk radio every day during the 2023 season, which was the direct opposite of "In Bill We Trust." And if Jerod Mayo struggles this fall, the cycle will turn back in the other direction faster than Belichick's new 24-year-old galpal can spend his money.

These guys really look foolish.

My feeling about replica uniforms is simple. Buy them for the kids, not yourself. You look like an idiot wearing the uniform of a man in his 20s that has incredible athletic gifts, where the best you can do is get through an afternoon of lawn-mowing without spraining an ankle. But the book of life for your kids has yet to be written. It's OK for them to idolize their sports heroes. Maybe if you're really lucky, your kid will be so inspired that he or she will become one of the 0.03 percent of all high school athletes that will go on to become a professional. And if not, at least you did something nice for your son or daughter and didn't embarrass yourself in front of them in the process. 

Speaking of social media and sports-talk radio, here's another thing that grinds my gears.

I could never last in a job as a sports-talk host, and here's why. Too many times when I happen to be listening -- probably because I got in the car and had forgotten to tune away from the station that had the play-by-play the night before -- I hear callers try to make their points about the teams they are either praising or damning by using the personal pronoun "we." As in:

Host: Jocko in Malden, you're next.

Caller: Yeah, first time, long time. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, why is Pavetta giving up so many homers? We have to get rid of him. We're not going to win these close games if he can't stop giving up dingers. It's killing us!

Notice how that was phrased. The caller used "we" as if to imply that he was somehow involved in the management decisions of the Red Sox or as if he was or had been a member of the team. My first reaction would be to immediately stop the caller and ask him to pull out a copy of the latest Red Sox media guide and show me exactly where his name appears in the listing of management or on the all-time team roster.

And I'd be fired for it, as being elitist scum. Which I am. I just don't believe anyone is entitled to use a personal pronoun in regard to a professional sports team unless you were actually employed by it. And that doesn't include a job as a beer-pourer at a concession stand on the third level of Gillette Stadium.

My friend did not agree with me. I'm sure she thinks I'm as scummy an elitist as I am in real life. But I covered the Patriots for 42 years and I'll never use "we" to refer to my association with that team. It will always be "they." And rightfully so.

That stance of mine did once result in a rather humorous (at least to me) episode quite a few years back, however, and now I'm ready to reveal it.

Long before he had a radio show of his own on WBZ-FM, former Boston Herald writer Michael Felger frequently guested on WEEI's "The Big Show" hosted by Glenn Ordway, who was recently inducted into the Mass. Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Ordway used a rotating crew of guest hosts, and as Felger had been a host on a small station with an even smaller signal after leaving the Herald, he returned quickly to the 'EEI fold when the other station ended its locally-based programs.

Now, I was not a big fan of Felger's when he was on the Patriots beat for the Herald, for reasons I won't get into here. But one day, as I was listening to Ordway's show, Felger let loose with an unmistakable personal pronoun when referring to the Patriots, and that went right up my backside.

Felger: What's this 'we' stuff?

But I had a way of calling him out for it without getting too personal.

In those days, Ordway's show had a segment called "The Whiner Line." Fans could call that station at any time of day and leave a recording with whatever pithy and anonymous comment they had in mind, and Ordway and his staff would choose the best and air them at the end of his show every day.

So, I prepared myself. I've always been able to mimic other voices, so I cranked mine up about five octaves and cleared my throat enough times to make my voice sound as if it was the product of a six-pack-a-day smoking habit. Then I applied the thickest Boston accent I could muster, and I dialed the number.

"Hey, Fel-GAH," I said. "What's this 'we' stuff? When did YOU play fah the Pats?" Click.

Very few calls to the Whiner Line made it to broadcast, but mine did the very next day. And Felger happened to be guesting in studio again, and his fellow hosts let him have it.

It was priceless. I laughed in solitude because I didn't dare tell others on the beat at the time, but the story eventually got out -- I really do have a big mouth -- and most in my circle of friends applauded my effort.

These days, I'd probably let that go. I'm no longer in the sports media, and I don't have to wage the us-vs.-them battle that it had eventually become. But I still get a little frosted when I see news anchors on the nightly telecasts wearing Celtics hats and acting like fans, crossing that imaginary line between journalist and participant. It's just not right.

Besides, I'd look pretty stupid wearing a Caitlin Clark jersey.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 56.

Gasoline marketing was an entirely different thing in the 1960s.

You may have heard Alex Salachi and me talking about the butcher shops and gasoline stations in the Mansfield of 60 years ago in our most recent episode of my audio podcast, The Owner's Box. But now you can see not only us, in all our seasoned glory, but also some visual examples of the Mansfield that no longer exists in this episode of my video podcast.

It's the first time that I've committed one of our "Mansfield Memories" episodes to video, and I think it came out very well. It's the first time I've been able to use a two-camera setup in recording one of my video podcasts, and I also insert several vintage photos from the archives of the old Mansfield News, courtesy of the Mansfield Historical Society, as well as some images from my own collection.

And don't forget my unusual commercials! I've found four gems for this episode, and you'll love them.

It's a lot of fun to look back at the changes in our community over the decades -- and it's almost therapeutic for Alex and me, we both having reached our 70th birthdays recently. We try to stay current with the world in our roles as the cable TV broadcasting team for boys' and girls' basketball at Mansfield High and King Philip Regional, but it's just as important to remain cognizant of the path we took to get us to this point in our lives.

Join us as we stroll through the mists of time!

(Blogger's Note: The link below is to an edited version of the original Episode 56. It was flagged for an unintentional copyright violation regarding one of the vintage commercials, but the offending commercial has since been removed. It's a shame, too ... it really should have been in the public domain after 64 years.)

The Owner's Box, Ep. 55.

When they weren't kidding about the "service" in the term "service station."

It's time for another "Mansfield Memories" episode of The Owner's Box, so Alex Salachi and I manned the microphones at Fulton Pond Studios to peer into the mists of old age and recall some interesting and informative aspects of our hometown's history and culture over the 70 years we've both been on this earth.

This time, Alex looks back at the many mom-and-pop butcher shops that met the unique needs of what was once a town populated mainly by Italian immigrants and their families.

And I take a look back at a town that once had only 5,000-9,000 residents, as opposed to today's nearly 25,000 -- but had more than 23 locations where gasoline was sold at retail pumps. There are only eight gas stations in the town today, five of them still at or very near to their locations in the 1950s and 1960s.

This is the audio only version of the podcast, but I have another surprise for you. In addition to the links you will find here, I will also be producing a video episode of "The Owner's Box ... After Dark" from this recording. Not only will you see Alex and me in all our splendor, but you'll also see vintage photographs of the locations and people we're talking about.

The video version will be out in a couple of days. But in the meantime, enjoy the audio version -- and let your imagination or memories fill in the blanks.

At loggerheads over a logo?

It was announced this week that my high school alma mater, Mansfield (Mass.) High School, has chosen a new sports logo. 

Mansfield High's new Hornet logo.

More accurately, it has updated an old logo -- bringing to an end a five-month process that allowed my school to embrace its 79-year history as the Mansfield Green Hornets while updating its look and protecting it from those that might abuse it.

As pictured to the right, the new Hornet is bolder, stronger, with a touch of confidence and cockiness that the old one lacked. And it's greener. Our hornet's face is now green and he's proud enough of his heritage and association with our school to be wearing the newly-designed "M" logo on his shirt. 

You can see the differences in the new Hornet and the older one (pictured elsewhere in this missive). I really liked the older one, which has been around the halls of Mansfield High for more than a decade, but it's a little more cartoonish than The New Guy. 

And the big problem, one of the driving forces behind the decision to make the change, is that the old Hornet wasn't ours. We didn't own his rights, and free agency where logos are concerned can be a costly proposition.

The former Mansfield Hornet.

The former logo is a slightly-altered version of the Yellowjacket logo that represents Georgia Tech on the national stage. Take out the yellow and throw in some green and silver tones, and bingo -- we had a logo that was a damn sight better than some of the faltering images adopted by MHS over the years that struggled at making a stinging insect a sympathetic figure and something you wanted to rally the troops around.

It's no wonder that, in the late 1970s, a group of enterprising students decided to paint a mural of the Incredible Hulk inside the James Albertini Memorial Gymnasium. The Marvel Comics character was depicted as bursting through the cinder block wall of the gym, with the banner "MHS Green Machine" above it -- and, following decades of being the doormats of the Hockomock League and reading headlines that relied upon tired clichés such as "Hornets stung" or "Hornets squished," Mansfield athletes tried to tell the world through the Incredible Hulk that they were tired of being regarded as insignificant insects. 

Over the last quarter-century, Mansfield athletics have been on a huge upswing. The football, baseball, boys' basketball, girls' basketball, soccer, lacrosse and track-and-field teams, and others as well, have become perennial league contenders. That's the product of better athletes and better coaching, but I also have to believe that the adoption of a common logo to represent Mansfield teams helped forge a shared identity.

Georgia Tech's Yellowjacket.

But it's very important to note here that, as I said before, the logo wasn't ours. It was really Georgia Tech's. And that could have led to the manufacture of bootleg logo attire for which Mansfield High would receive no income whatsoever, or the possible use of the logo in manners that would not represent the values of the Mansfield School System -- or even worse, prompt Georgia Tech to step in and issue a cease-and-desist order for unauthorized trademark infringement. 

The pro leagues and major colleges protect the use of their logos and trademarks, knowing that firm control means additional revenue. The NFL has a department called NFL Properties which enforces trademark protection quite aggressively, regardless of whether it's a current logo or something from a member franchise's past.

Case in point: Some time back, a liquor store opened in one of our local towns calling itself "Patriot Liquors." Now, the word "patriot" is in common use and the New England Patriots have no say over who can or who can't use it. But this particular store featured a sign that ripped off the team's old logo, the crouching "Pat Patriot" caricature created by artist Phil Bissell in the early 1960s, with just one difference -- the football that Pat was about to snap in his classic pose was missing.

That wasn't enough to avoid the wrath of NFL Properties, which started the process of legal action to stop the use of the Patriots' former logo. The issue met its own resolution when the liquor store went out of business.

You may also recall that many years back, Major League Baseball demanded payment from teams in the well-known summer Cape Cod Baseball League that used MLB trademarks and nicknames, forcing many of the teams to change their identities entirely. But more often than not, pro and college teams don't take offense when high school programs use their logos. Franklin High used the Carolina Panthers' logo on its football helmets for a few years before designing its own unique logo. Another local school briefly used Northwestern University's stylized "N" on their helmets, but quickly went back to a common typeface. I'm not sure if that school heard from Evanston, but it certainly was a quick decision.

And, of course, you have the current and ongoing controversy in Foxboro over the use of the Washington Redskins' former logo. We'll get into that issue a little further down in this missive.

Anyway, the process in Mansfield was swift and relatively painless. Since Insect-Americans do not seem to be offended by the use of a hornet as our logo, a panel consisting of school administrators, athletic department officials, coaches, teachers, students and community members (including me) was formed and asked to offer opinions as to how a "new" hornet should reflect the values that they believe were the best of what Mansfield represents.

My dad's letter sweater
(Class of 1937).

Also brought on board was a fellow named Jeff Eagles, who runs a design firm out of Canton that has worked with high schools, colleges and pro teams in designing dynamic new logos. Among his clients are the Vegas Golden Knights and the Florida Panthers of the NHL as well as recent rebrandings for Attleboro High and Canton High. 

Eagles did his homework, looking through archival photos dating back more than 120 years to see how Mansfield represented itself. Old Townies like me knew that the inspiration for the nickname came not from an insect, but from a student vote in 1945 that reflected the popularity of the radio serial "The Green Hornet." Second place, by the way, was "Marauders." But I didn't know that it was in 1909 that the Mansfield High baseball team adopted green as its primary coloring for the lettering on their uniforms, and green and white gradually became the official school colors.

In the many meetings of this panel, several options were presented. Some of the Hornets weren't very good at all. One version looked like the Hornet had been exposed to massive amounts of gamma radiation (you have seen the Marvel movies, right?) and became The Hulk -- totally 'roided out and dripping with far too much testosterone to accurately represent Mansfield's girls' teams. 

The laughable "Bucky Hornet."

That version reminded me of a horrible attempt to create a similar logo back in the 1980s by then-athletic director Vincent Messina, who fancied himself as an artist. Sensing that student sentiment was turning away from most portrayals of a hornet as a pest that should be eradicated, he created the ludicrously bulging "Bucky Hornet" logo you see at right. Well-intentioned as it was, it was clearly the worst logo ever to represent the school and an immediate target of ridicule.

The chosen iteration really was the best. It still features that feisty stature and that sly smile that says, "I'm ready to whip your ass." It's modern and a little angular, but it's relatable, too. It enjoys being from Mansfield, as indicated by the logo shirt it's wearing. And he's totally unique to Mansfield, which means that the Mansfield School Department has total control over how and when it can be used.

I posted photos of it online today, and for the most part, reactions have been very positive. Some still say they want to go back to the old logo, but that just isn't going to happen because of the trademark issue and the desire of Mansfield school officials to have control over its branding. I, too, liked the old logo -- but I fully understand why it had to give way to something new that we can call our very own.

One other aspect of this rebranding is that Mansfield now also has a standard font for use on its uniforms. The word "Mansfield" will also appear framed by arches above and below, which are symbolic of the train line that runs through the center of town (a major factor in the town's industrial growth in the late 1800s) and the underpasses that were built in the 1950s to help keep Mansfield a hub of transportation in the region. This rebranding will also re-emphasize green and white as the official colors of MHS athletics, and hopefully eliminate the overuse of black alternate uniforms that have led us astray from our athletic roots.

Even the letter "M" has a subtle change. You will notice at the top of the letter that there are little points that penetrate inward from the serifs. That is to make the top left and top right serifs appear to separate from the base of the letter, symbolizing the wings of a hornet. They were much bigger in earlier designs, but many of us started to see the letters M and V on top of each other (as if this was a new logo for Martha's Vineyard), so the design was altered.

As far as I can tell, the whole process has been accomplished without rancor and ill feelings. The biggest point I made during the procedure (and I was quite the pain in the ass about it) was that I didn't want to see Mansfield adopt uniforms that had dark green numbers on the green shirts, as Canton High has done on its road basketball uniforms. That color combination practically renders the numbers invisible from a distance -- and as a 70-year-old basketball announcer, I need to be able to see those numbers. 

For his part, Jeff Eagles said that while he came up with the designs for Canton's rebranding, he did not recommend that color combination for the Bulldogs' uniforms. Hopefully that message was delivered loud and clear to my friends at MHS.

And that brings us back to the travails of the Foxboro Warriors.

You may recall that last year, the School Committee voted to eliminate future use of any Native American imagery in logos representing the school, while at the same time reaffirming "Warriors" as the nickname. Fearful of threatened state legislation that would ban all Native American-themed nicknames and logos, the committee acted in a manner that it hoped would preserve the popular nickname, which has been in use since the 1950s, while sacrificing the use of the former Washington Redskins' logo which was first applied to Foxboro football helmets in the 1980s.

Many schools in Massachusetts and elsewhere have changed their representation similarly, or chosen entirely new identities, rather than facing the possibility of being forced to change if one of the many attempts to legislate against Native American imagery finally succeeds. King Philip Regional High School recently dropped all Native American imagery for a simple logo with the letters K and P interlocking, still keeping the Warriors nickname, with nary a peep of protest. It was done quietly and with absolutely no fanfare, and no one was the wiser that it had happened.

Foxboro probably would have been wise to take the same approach. Instead, the school committee meeting was filled with angry Townies claiming that the loss of the Redskins logo -- which had been ripped off from a pro team and would later become the most disgraced image in all of logodom -- would be the worst thing ever to happen to the town. It was, in a word, embarrassing.

But the vote was taken and the decision was made -- a decision that would cost a couple of incumbents their places on the committee in the next election. But before that happened, a committee was formed to create a new logo -- and that committee's mandate came due this past week.

Much like Mansfield's, the Foxboro panel was populated with a cross-section of school officials, private citizens and students. From all indications, it worked very hard and very judiciously to feel the pulse of the community about this hot-button issue, but all the while having to buck widespread opposition to anything but the old Redskins logo.

This could be Foxboro's new logo.

The panel had 16 designs submitted to it. The first to be eliminated were those featuring a fox as the central element, because most feedback indicated that Foxboro residents polled didn't identify with the animal as representative of the community. Eventually, four "finalists" were selected and the apparent winner is the one you see at right. It wasn't my favorite, but it's not much better or worse than any of the others. In this instance, the logo's central element is a half-blue, half-gold helmet which, I think, is supposed to represent warriors of ancient times, Greek or Roman themes coming to mind. I, however, tend to be stuck in my Marvel Comics mindset, and what I see is the image of the helmet worn by Magneto, master of magnetism and the arch-villain and nemesis of the mutant X-Men. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go on demand and play "X-Men: Days of Future Past." I prefer Michael Fassbender's version of the younger Magneto to Ian McKellan's portrayal of the older Magneto in the original trilogy, but you will see both of them in the role in this movie.

The school board voted 3-2 to accept the design and send it on for some final tweaking, which may involve removal of the "W" on the helmet, changing it to more of a side view, and a few minor changes to the type fonts. But you can bet that there will still be cries of objections to the procedure, no matter what they finish with. 

I also think the Foxboro board made a mistake by not establishing the logo and the "Warriors" nickname as the standard for the entire school system, as Mansfield has done. Elementary schools in Foxboro have their own nicknames and imagery, and they don't become Warriors until Grade 9. That just doesn't make sense to me, but hey, I haven't been a Foxboro resident since 2015, so I really have no say.

I can't say much more, opinion-wise, because I still have great friends in Foxboro and they are very nice to let me call games played by the girls' basketball team on Foxboro Cable Access (including their last two state championship wins). I've tried to tell them that this is for future generations and not their own, but they don't want to accept that. And I've tried to understand how they feel, but it's tough for me to do so because my town chose an insect to serve as its mascot, and not the indigenous peoples of this land who were massacred in the name of Manifest Destiny.

Maybe if those Mansfield kids in 1945 had been really faithful to the radio serial and chose the Green Hornet's Asian sidekick, Kato, as their mascot, we'd have been in a world of hurt today from the Asian community over our use of a distasteful stereotype to represent our athletic teams. 

But they didn't, and thank God for that.

Mark Farinella has been designing sports uniforms and logos just for fun since the 1970s, and no one has ever seen any of his designs. But he always makes a point of analyzing every uniform he sees during a televised game. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

The Owner's Box, Ep. 54.

Should Caitlin Clark be going to the Olympics? I'll straddle the fence a little on this one.

Back to work on the podcasts after a busy spring season, and it's time to get topical with a couple of HOT TAKES!

First, I discuss the latest controversy surrounding the best thing since sliced bread in the WNBA, Caitlin Clark, and the apparent snub from USA Basketball in selections for the U.S. Olympic team for the 2024 Paris games. On one hand, it's a terrible marketing decision. But on the other hand, maybe it's time this 22-year-old phenom got a rest.

Then I weigh in on the star-studded gala induction ceremony for Tom Brady as he enters the Patriots' Hall of Fame. I'm not going. "How can that be?" you might ask, as I did cover all of his career in Foxboro. Well, there are valid reasons -- not the least of them being that I don't really care all that much.

And finally, I offer a few coming attractions with a brief preview of the coming Episode 55 in this series of the best little podcasts in all the land. 

Enjoy!

Cheap shots on Clark aren't helping WNBA.

Caitlin Clark (right) hits the floor after taking a cheap shot from Chicago's Chennedy Carter.

A very good female friend who was a basketball player of considerable talent told me something years ago, and I've been reminded recently of its wisdom.

She said, "There is no worse form of jealousy than what some female athletes have for other female athletes."

Ladies and gentlemen of the court of public opinion, I present to you Exhibit I in the case of Jealous Athletes v. Caitlin Clark.

I turned on the TV promptly at noon Saturday to watch the WNBA game between the Chicago Sky and the Indiana Fever in Indianapolis. That brought my season total of WNBA games viewed to seven, which is at least seven more than I had watched in the previous 26 seasons of WNBA competition. And while I did have some warmth in my heart for the Chicago franchise (you may recall that Bishop Feehan's own Missy Traversi had a tryout with them during their inaugural training camp in 2006), I found myself rooting for Indiana to earn its second victory of the Caitlin Clark era.

They love the Fever in Indianapolis.

And why not? Just about everyone that watches the WNBA these days is doing it only because Clark, the former Iowa star, has brought her formidable, attention-grabbing talents from college to the pros. And please, don't try to tell me otherwise. If not for her arrival in the league and the immediate boost of popularity it has gotten in return, the WNBA would still be lingering deep at the bottom level of sports limbo. 

For example -- The Fever defeated the Sky, 71-70, before more than 18,000 fans at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indy. Right after the game, ESPN switched to the regular-season finale in the United Football League pitting the Michigan Panthers against the Birmingham Stallions in the latter city. Birmingham won, 20-19, before a crowd that can best described as "relatives and close friends." Even the UFL website left the attendance line blank in the official box score, embarrassing as it must have been. There was no camera angle possible that could make it look as if there was anything other than empty seats within the 47,100-seat Protective Stadium.

The times, they are a'changing -- but rather than embrace its newfound popularity, the WNBA seems to be bound and determined to undermine it.

With very little time left in the third quarter of play, Clark was positioned by herself to the right of the lane, about basket-high, as the play started to head to the other end of the court. Before Clark turned to join the play, however, Chicago reserve forward Chennedy Carter came from nowhere to slam into Clark, slamming both hip and shoulder into the 6-foot (and considerably more slender) guard and sending her careening to the floor.

It was, by all definitions, the textbook example of a cheap shot -- totally unnecessary contact away from the ball. Various video replays that caught Carter's approach not only showed Clark's entire body seemingly rippling with impact waves from the violent force of the contact, but they also caught Carter shouting something at Clark before laying the check on her (I'm no lip-reader, but it surely looked like, "Yo, bitch!").

It was ruled just a common foul, and not what should have been a flagrant foul worthy of ejection from the game. (Sunday update: After reviewing the play, the WNBA upgraded Carter's foul to a Flagrant 1, which is little more than an "our bad" admission.)

TV replays also caught Sky rookie forward Angel Reese, she of the celebrated rivalry with Clark during their LSU vs. Iowa games, embracing Carter as she came off the floor and celebrating the cheap hit her teammate dropped on the league's leading rookie scorer, and arguably, its most popular player.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

After the game, during the post-game press conference involving Carter and Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon, reporters did their jobs and asked Carter directly about the play.

"I ain't answering no Caitlin Clark questions," Carter said. At that point, Weatherspoon, a first-year coach but a former WNBA star who suffered the indignities of playing in a league that nobody cared about, called an abrupt halt to the press conference. The only thing missing was a Bill Belichick-like "We're on to New York," referring to her next game on Tuesday against the Liberty.

Not only shameful, but classless.

(Another Sunday update: The WNBA has fined the Sky franchise $5,000 for not following WNBA media-availability policies and Reese $1,000 for not making herself available to reporters. I bet their wrists stung for a couple of seconds.)

The WNBA is squandering its meal ticket.

Look, I'm not saying that Caitlin Clark should be enveloped in bubble wrap and treated like a piece of fine china. She broke every scoring record in the NCAA record books. Of course, players in the WNBA were eager to see if the increased level of physicality in the pro game would take her down a peg. And from what I hear, she does her share of trash talking and occasionally overacts when hit, trying to draw the foul. Legendary Celtics' announcer Johnny Most used to call that the "Stanislavski method" of flopping when opponents tried to get a call. Of course, he never described flopping by the Celtics that way.

So far, there have been adjustments. Clark rarely gets free for her signature "logo threes" from way downtown. Her defense has been pedestrian at best, but she's still getting plenty of points and lots of assists -- although she'd be getting a lot more of the latter if her teammates had the skills to be where they can handle Clark's thread-the-needle passes. 

Clark certainly should not be leading the WNBA in turnovers, but the Indiana Fever have her for a reason. They're not a very good team, and they didn't get much better even with the previous year's No. 1 draft pick, forward Aliyah Boston, who is only starting to figure out the potential benefits of playing with Clark.

It doesn't help that Christie Sides, in her second year coaching the Fever, acts like she could be seriously outcoached by at least four of the women that coach high school basketball locally. She has no idea when or why to get Clark out of a ballgame for rest. In at least two notable circumstances I've seen recently, Indiana had tenuous leads going into the middle of the fourth quarter when Sides put Clark on the bench for extended stretches -- during which time the opposition went off on runs and either took the lead or cut the margin significantly.

Christie Sides: She's overmatched.

Nor has Sides had the courage to come to her star player's defense. She has one technical foul so far, earned in protesting one of the many away-from-the-play hits that Clark has taken. Even after Saturday's game, she told assembled reporters that she was sending films of the questionable hits to the commissioner's office, but then she paused -- and said meekly that she didn't want to be fined as a result of her comments.

That was considerably spineless of her.

Also spineless has been the response of Clark's own teammates to her travails. Maybe there was some initial jealousy of Clark's popularity when she first arrived, but at least some members of the Fever are starting to realize that she is their meal ticket. Now, they have to learn how to defend her when she is being assaulted. 

Maybe players like Carter or Reese (the latter who looks like she'd be afraid to get her makeup smeared) would think twice about trying to put Clark out of a game if they knew they were going to get a right hook to the jaw from Boston immediately afterward. I'm not a fan of retaliation -- and I have a story to tell at the end of this to illustrate why -- but Clark's teammates absolutely have to let her know that they have her back if they are to continue to grow and prosper.

Also, the WNBA clearly needs to step in at some point. Weatherspoon should be fined and Carter suspended for a few games to send a message to the rest of the league that this behavior is unacceptable.

Sure, the league wasn't even a sports fan's afterthought until Clark arrived on the scene. There is evidence to suggest that some of these issues may be racially motivated -- I find it interesting that, aside from Diana Taurasi's early comment about the W being a next-level challenge for Clark and how that was misinterpreted somewhat, much of the negativity about Clark's popularity seems to come from Black athletes that believe they and their predecessors were wrongfully shortchanged before Whitey White Girl arrived on the scene.

Well, maybe they're right. That was wrong. But now, America seems to care about women's basketball in a way that it has never cared before -- and now is not the time to re-open old wounds and to let anger over past mistakes derail a promising but fragile chance for widespread acceptance.

What sort of message is this crusade against Caitlin Clark sending to the most important fans of all, the next generation of female basketball players that will be the league's lifeblood in the decades to come? I've covered high school sports for 56 years now, and the one thing that is constant is that young athletes tend to emulate what they see from their heroes in the pros. Even to this day, boys and girls alike will slap the bottoms of their sneakers exactly the same way that Larry Bird used to, although my guess is hardly any of them realize that's where the practice originated.

I've also seen that girls have been more resistant than the boys to some of the more negative influences of pro players' excesses. I see a lot of jawing and posturing in the boys' game, and frequent mugging to the crowd. There was one game I covered in last year's MIAA boys' tournament where one kid on a visiting team kept complaining to an official about an obvious call long after he should have stopped, and then he turned to the crowd and started gesturing. Having seen enough of that, I was quite pointed in my broadcast commentary about the lack of wisdom being displayed by the athlete and his coach for letting that behavior continue.  

Girls don't do that. I can say without hesitation that coaches like Foxboro's Lisa Downs, Bishop Feehan's Amy Dolores, Mansfield's Heather McPherson and Attleboro's Bri Bracken would nip it in the bud quickly if it did. And I can also guarantee that none of these coaches want to see future players showing up in their practices acting like the ladies in the WNBA that believe they need to deliver "messages" to Caitlin Clark.

Defend the hell out of her, yes. Faceguard her. Bump her around when it's legit. Make her work for every point, rebound and assist. Stop her if you can. And if you can't, don't blame her for the reasons why people ignored the WNBA for the better part of three decades and just work harder the next time.

To do anything else -- including this ridiculous rookie initiation of Clark that is totally classless, thoroughly undignified and potentially injurious -- is to spit in the face of young girls everywhere that want to grow up to be the next WNBA superstars.

I did say I had one more story to tell, about why I'm not a big fan of retribution even when it seems justified, and here it is.

Many years ago, a good friend of mine played for what was then Bryant College. She was a double-figure scorer and rebounder and a pretty dynamic player, so naturally, a lot of her opponents tried just about everything to limit the damage she could do in a game.

One day, she was playing in a game at St. Anselm and was doing just about all of the good things she always does. And at some point, somebody from St. A's decided to do something about it.

In action under the boards, an outside shot had already clanged off the rim and was heading long and outside the paint. My friend was poised in rebounding position but was already aware that the ball was going elsewhere, so for a brief moment, her guard was down. Suddenly, a St. Anselm forward of equal size raced into the paint and delivered a hip check into my friend's side that sent her backside and waist going in a direction neither was designed to do -- almost identical to the hit that Carter delivered to Clark on Saturday.

Not expecting the violent level of contact, my friend was sent reeling from under the basket to almost out of the lane entirely. But she kept her feet -- and outraged by the painful and unnecessary nature of the hit, she wheeled around and delivered a roundhouse right to the back of the offending player.

Of course, the official under the basket did not see the initial contact. He only saw the retaliatory punch, blew his whistle, called a technical foul and ejected my friend from the game -- which, I suppose, was warranted. As far as St. Anselm was concerned, it was "mission accomplished."

No, I'm not overreacting just because the player was my friend. I have it on videotape, it's exactly as I described it, and the tape is still as clear as day. It was the cheapest of cheap shots, and I definitely had flashbacks to that moment Saturday as I watched Caitlin Clark careening to the floor. 

There is no place for that nonsense in basketball at any level, for any reason. 

The game is more physical than it used to be, no doubt, and it should not become anything else. I don't want to see it go back to six-girl rules or peach baskets. But there needs to be a proper context for the physicality, and that absolutely does not include trying to injure a player just because she made your league a lot more interesting than it was at any time in the 26 years that preceded her arrival in it.

The WNBA needs to act upon this, and quickly, lest the progress of recent months be undermined by petty jealousies and a failure to see what's best for the long-range future of women's basketball.

Mark Farinella has covered women's basketball at the high school and college levels since 1977, and he's loved every minute of it. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.