Journalism or voyeurism?

Patriots' coach Mike Vrabel addressed the media in Foxboro earlier this week.

I would imagine that many of you that had your spirits lifted last fall by the unexpected advancement of the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl have been following the franchise's latest peccadillo as an unwelcome development.

After all, after several seasons of futility fueled by Bill Belichick's descent into madness thanks to all that comedy with that young girl (thanks, Don Vito Corleone, for that apt description), the Patriots broke out in a big way this past season under the leadership of new coach Mike Vrabel and succeeded far beyond any reasonable expectations. The future was so bright, as the song says, you had to wear shades.

And then ... in the true spirit of Spygate, Deflategate and the Orchids of Asia, something came up that stuck a red-hot poker into the heart of that optimism. And now, the pundits have brushed off all the old tropes about the Patriots' championships being invalidated by "cheating" and other nefarious schemes that they claim have attacked the moral fiber of the nation.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the best example of what has happened to journalism in the era of the Internet, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle. It's no longer the "Five W's" that serve as the profession's guiding principles -- "who, what, when, where and why" (and you can add "how" if you like). It's the Four F's -- first and fast, and fuck factual.

Journalism in the social media era is now a rush to judgment at Warp 9. If it isn't swift and salacious, it's not worth the bandwidth.

No doubt, it's a sexy story -- with emphasis on the sex.

Former NFL reporter Dianna Russini.

Vrabel appears to have been caught in a sketchy relationship with NFL reporter Dianna Russini of The Athletic, the online news service that became the sports-news apparatus employed by The New York Times when that venerable newspaper trashed its own sports department. The two, who have apparently been friendly for many years including Vrabel's tenure as head coach of the Tennessee Titans, were photographed together at a posh resort in Arizona. The photos reveal the two grasping each other's hands and then embracing, and then lounging together in bathing suits at poolside.

OK, that may not be the normal setting between an NFL head coach and a reporter. It's not a good look, but there is no apparent evidence of hanky-panky from the photos alone. It was certainly suspicious, however. 

The photos were obviously taken by someone with a long telephoto lens whose snapshots could be taken from a position of concealment and with clear intent to find dirt on someone. The widespread speculation was that Russini's husband hired a private investigator to prove the rumors of his wife's infidelity. And it's known that the photos were shopped around to several media outlets that declined them before the smarmy New York Post gleefully seized the moment. And this, my friends, is when the feces hit the fan.

Both Russini and Vrabel first dismissed the photos as evidence of nothing more than a professional relationship. But the eyebrows of a nation had already been raised, and a tsunami of digital content inflamed the situation into a Defcon-1 national crisis. The New York Times at first defended Russini, but then reversed course and announced it was investigating her past journalism for evidence of possible unethical conduct. The NFL, meanwhile, said it had no reason to initiate any disciplinary action against Vrabel -- and that infuriated the legion of Patriots Haters that wanted the franchise to be flogged, tarred and feathered for another assault upon the sanctity of the Shrine of Football.

Russini has since resigned her job at The Atlantic/NYT, still professing her innocence. Vrabel kept a very low profile until Tuesday, when he surprised a small contingent of beat writers covering a player-availability session and made a statement. He said he had engaged in "difficult conversations with people I care about," including his family, his players and the team's ownership. He said that he had to present "the best version of me" to all parties concerned going forward. 

Some in the Boston media protested the unannounced appearance of Vrabel at a media session that many reporters blew off as unremarkable and unworthy of their presence. Their published protests came off as insincere and as evidence of being caught with their pants down for not being at the stadium, just in case something newsworthy happened. 

Yes, it was a little sneaky of the Patriots' media relations department to bring Vrabel out when it was known that there would be just a small contingent of the hardcore beat writers. Welcome to the Real World. It's been nothing new for the Patriots since 1993 to try to control the narrative. 

Belichick made the rules, and 
readers hated our complaints.

And besides, a lesson I have learned painfully is that nobody cares to read how hard it is for us journalists to do our jobs. Bill Belichick, in particular, made my life as a beat writer a living hell from 2000-18, but there was no sympathy to be found for my travails, and I should never have expected any. Many readers have a distorted view of what life as a sportswriter and columnist really is. They see us as living high off the land, served gourmet meals for free and guzzling Johnnie Walker in the press box, and they don't care to be told the truth. They just want the stories they like -- mostly positive ones about their beloved team, although most refuse to admit that they absolutely love the tabloid tales dripping with controversy. And they don't care how we get them.

And in the age of instant communication? Sex sells, and the faster you write it, the better it sells. It's all about the clicks and the views. And the facts? Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, enjoy the rumors and speculation.

That wasn't how it was for most of my 42 years on the beat. I figured it was my job to cover the team. As time passed and situations arose, I had to cover some of the team's transgressions as well. But at least I never felt like a voyeur peeping into someone's privacy to get a scoop.

I have had a bit of a debate recently with a broadcast journalist whom I respect. He's been pounding away relentlessly on his podcast about the reputation of Russini and how she should never get another opportunity in sports journalism over this. And now, he's hammering away at the NFL for "covering up" another Patriots scandal and for not probing deeper into Vrabel's behavior.

I contended that Vrabel's participation in whatever happened -- and we still don't know what did happen for sure -- had nothing to do with football. I have to believe that his family's queries will be pointed and emotional (if they haven't been already). To be honest, I don't need to have a transcript of those discussions.

Kraft has his own skeletons in the closet.

What's more, it was suggested that I was responding as if I had an "affinity" for the Patriots because of my long tenure as a beat writer. I had to chuckle at that, given the number of times that I had open and public disagreements with Robert Kraft -- especially when some of his actions as team owner might have had a negative impact upon the town of Foxboro, where the stadium is located and which was prominent within the coverage sphere of my newspaper. As I said, covering the team was my job and I was happy to have it, but there's no way I could be called a fanboy in my coverage.

As for the Patriots' "cover-ups," I don't remember any. Spygate and Deflategate were debated and adjudicated publicly, often to excess. The Patriots took extreme steps to challenge Deflategate by creating a website devoted to countering the charges, which is the only time in my life when I had any need to know about the "ideal gas law." I still believe the Patriots should have just clammed up, accepted a penalty contritely, and moved on. Their reputation was harmed needlessly by their arrogance and stubbornness.

Even in the case of Kraft's notorious trips to a massage parlor in Florida, the issue became public and was the source of constant debate and ridicule for some time (and continues to be so). He got good lawyers and managed to avoid ramifications, but the Orchids of Asia will live on in Patriots infamy.

For the record, I don't know Ms. Russini. I don't believe I've ever met her, and certainly haven't in the seven years I've been off the beat. I know there are rumors about her behavior, but I learned a long time ago not to judge anyone by whatever rumors there may be -- especially female reporters, who have endured all sorts of crap and wild accusations that your run-of-the-mill male reporter would never face.

For example, many years ago I spent more than six hours giving a deposition in a law office in Cambridge, answering repeated questions about a well-known incident involving a female reporter that was harassed by players while she was interviewing others in the team's locker room. Instead of asking me questions about the specifics of the incident, I was bombarded by queries about the woman's character -- how she conducted herself among the players, was she playful and flirty with them, how did she dress, and so on. They seemed particularly fixated upon how she dressed at the team's summer training camp and whether she wore revealing clothing that might be titillating to the athletes.

Of course, she wore shorts and tank tops on days that reached the 90s in temperature. So did other women covering the team. Almost all of the male reporters wore summer attire. The women's basketball coach from the school wore tight-fitting singlets and shorts as she completed her daily fitness run throughout the campus and around the practice fields. It was the uniform of the day. But upon hearing these questions, it dawned upon me that the lawyers weren't looking for facts. They were looking to discredit the female reporter any way they could. If they could make this young woman appear to be a slut, they will have earned their inflated pay.

I recall my responses. "Yes, she wore shorts. So did (name redacted)," I said, referring to another female reporter on the beat. "So did I, and about 90 percent of the male reporters." 

The lawyers accused me of being uncooperative and marked down my responses as "unresponsive." I'm surprised I didn't end up facing contempt charges. It was a good introduction to the double standard faced by female reporters that they still face some 30 years later.

As most of you know, I did cover Mike Vrabel's career as a Patriot. I wasn't close to him as an individual. He was accessible at times, other times snarly (as typical of the Belichick Reign of Terror). I respected him immensely as a player for his ability, attitude and versatility, especially all those touchdowns he scored as a short-yardage tight end. 

Although I can only view his coaching tenure here from afar, I was pleased that he brought a different attitude to the Patriots than either Belichick or Jerod Mayo. There was accountability, yes, but the Patriots did not operate as the Wehrmacht. It was still a game and Vrabel wanted his players to have fun playing it. They improved steadily as the season progressed and while their Super Bowl appearance may have been a bit premature for their development, who couldn't be encouraged that they got there?

Accountability is a big part of Vrabel's message, and I'm sure that is resonating around the team's glowing new practice facility as the offseason workouts begin and the draft nears. No doubt, players will hold him accountable for this latest episode -- at least for a while, until the next juicy story erupts. 

People of all walks of life have short attention spans. 

This guy read the Bible on TV this week.

Jack Kennedy shtupped Marilyn Monroe while he was President. Bill Clinton got away with BJs in the Oval Office. The current occupant of the White House has cheated on all three of his wives, he would barge into the dressing rooms of the teenaged contestants of beauty pageants he owned so he could ogle them in states of undress, he has been accused of rape and was convicted in a civil trial of sexual assault, he was a frequent visitor to the private island of sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and it's widely believed that his current wife, a Slovenian model and former actress in pornographic films, was a member of Epstein's stable of escorts.

That guy is still President.

Want more? The Secretary of Defense and the Director of the FBI are accused of being raging drunks. The nation's health secretary openly admits that he stopped along the roadside to cut the penis out of a dead raccoon. The former Secretary of Homeland Security shot her dog and her husband liked to wear fake balloon boobs. A day doesn't pass in which some congressman from a Bible Belt state or a Christian pastor isn't accused of sexual assault upon children or related offenses. Meanwhile, people all over the world kill and maim on a daily basis in the name of one God or another.

But we shrug and plod ahead in our daily lives, numbed into a stupor by the torrent of salacious stories that are thrown at us every day. One candidate for the presidency had to withdraw from the race some years back because he whooped and hollered too emphatically after winning a primary. Today, it is really true that Donald Trump could do what he once said -- that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue in New York and still be elected. 

Grampy Bill and little Jordie are out for playtime.

Hey, Bill Belichick divorced his wife and mother of his children, took up with a large-breasted social butterfly who tried to re-cultivate his image, and once she started showing a little too much mileage for his tastes, he dumped her and took up with a granddaughter substitute -- all in the span of his 24 seasons as the Patriots' head coach.

"Yawn," you said. "He gave us six rings."

The point of all that is that Vrabel may be the darling of the tabloids these days, but his "offense" is a victimless crime compared to a lot else that goes on. As far as we know, he didn't sell state secrets to the Russians, Chinese or Iranians. He didn't pull off the modern-day equivalent of the Brinks Job. He hasn't turned the assets of the Patriots Foundation into a stable of Lamborghinis for himself. He's not Dr. Hannibal Lecter. He didn't turn his back on Sydney Sweeney. And on a truly serious note, he has not been accused by anyone of sexual assault or domestic violence. 

He will be held accountable -- by his wife, his children, and his team. I don't doubt that it will be a painful and emotional experience. I don't envy him. I don't know many saints in my life, and I certainly am not one.

To be honest, I don't need to know what he and Russini did or did not do, and I do not want to spend one ounce of imagination speculating about it. It's not an image I care to conjure. As for whether their alleged "pillow talk" included references to the Patriots' interest in Philadelphia wide receiver A.J. Brown, so what? I'm sure that there is no shortage of clandestine exchanges among the 32 teams, including at the coaches' meetings and league meetings. People talk. They whisper. Some get caught. Most don't. I'm not defending any of it or making any moral judgments other than to say that we are all human. We all make mistakes. Some mistakes aren't as bad as others.

Besides, it's a goddamned game. This isn't Julius and Ethel Rosenberg giving the Russians the secrets of the A-Bomb. These incessant calls for NFL investigations and further accountability and penalties are just a waste of electricity and bandwidth.

The damage has been done, but the sun will come up tomorrow -- hostilities in Iran pending. Let's move on.

MARK FARINELLA covered the Patriots for 42 years, through the best of times and the worst of times. He's not unhappy that he's not on the clock for this situation. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com

Another blow to local journalism.

The newspaper's headquarters has been advertised as being available for lease.

On the front page of its last two editions, The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., has run a notice to its loyal readers that the newspaper would be taking another step toward oblivion.

That may sound overly negative, but I don't know another way to describe it and still be honest.

The newspaper, which can draw its roots all the way back to 1871, told its readers that beginning in the first week of May, it would no longer produce a print edition on Mondays. That will reduce its publication schedule to newspapers on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, as well as a "Weekend" edition that replaced the Sunday edition that started in 1989 and was the showcase of the operation until it was discontinued amid falling circulation and dwindling advertising revenue at the end of the last decade.

Attributed to Craig Borges, the newspaper's executive editor, the note to readers said, "This was not an easy decision. The financial pressures facing local newspapers are real and significant. The cost of newsprint has risen sharply in recent years, along with fuel for delivery and electricity to operate and power our press and other machinery. ... Publishing six days a week in print is no longer financially sustainable."

We put out a good product.

Plenty more factors have undercut The Sun Chronicle's ability to carry out its mission -- and those factors actually began back when the newspaper was in its fat-and-happy stage.

I joined the staff of the newspaper on Feb. 7, 1977, but had actually worked for one of its predecessor publications, the Attleboro Sun, as a part-time high school sports correspondent from 1969-71. Earlier in 1971, the two local daily newspapers of the Attleboros, the Sun and the North Attleboro Chronicle, were merged into one publication, and a lengthy period of staff expansion and prosperity began.

The heyday came in the late 1980s, coinciding with the opening of the Emerald Square shopping mall on U.S. 1 in North Attleboro. While other newspapers were already starting to feel the pinch in advertising revenue that resulted from the wild fluctuations in the national economy at the time, The Sun Chronicle was the beneficiary of the many national and regional retailers that occupied the new mall and were eager to advertise their existence to what was then a vastly underserved area of southeastern Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island.

Fortunately, I was there to be part of the boom. I almost wasn't.

I had actually left the newspaper in 1987 after 10 award-winning years, seven of those as its first official sports editor, after a series of disputes with upper management. In a rare misjudging of our audience, the powers-that be wanted to change the focus of our sports coverage -- from a philosophy that embraced local high school sports and the many college and professional offerings in our immediate area, to a much-more narrowly focused scope that would basically ignore the pro teams and downplay the high schools while boosting staff commitment to coverage of pre-teen events such as Pop Warner football and other youth sports, as well as local beer league softball.

Our original computer-free newsroom, circa 1979.

It was an intolerable suggestion, and I fought like hell against it -- and lost badly. My temper often got the better of me in those days, and I left the paper in anger and a measure of disgrace. It was a down period in my life because I really believed I was building something good for our readers as well as myself. I was already 10 years into my coverage of the Patriots and five as a stringer working for the Associated Press, I had covered NCAA basketball and World Series games, and our local high school coverage was second to none -- and the feedback I had gotten was in direct contrast to the opinions being formulated in the bosses' offices.

I spent the next two years working part-time in both the news and sports departments of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, a much larger newspaper (100,000 daily circulation in its heyday), and I was able to maintain my presence on the Patriots beat for both them and the AP during that time.

We expanded and prospered in the '80s and '90s.

It was then that The Sun Chronicle decided to add a Sunday edition and publish every day of the week, which meant a large staff expansion and a need to find people that could get a lot of things done in a short amount of time. Their attempts to find someone to handle the chores in an expanded sports department fell flat as the debut day drew near, so they decided to offer the job to the devil they knew -- me. 

The first interviews went badly. There was still bad blood between me and some of the management, and I turned down the first offer quite firmly. But incense was burned, sacrifices were made, and when the pay offer came up and promises were made that I would be able to resume my coverage of the Patriots, I returned on Sept. 9, 1989, as the "Weekend Sports Editor." Also important were assurances that the philosophy that Peter Gobis and I had developed over 10 years would return as our guiding principles.

I was now a second-in-command, which was occasionally not in sync with my ego -- just ask former sports editors Bill Stedman and Dale Ransom about that -- but I had been humbled by my past failure and was able to swallow my pride more easily than in the past when it wasn't worth a fight.

Another busy night in the Sports Department.

The Sunday paper was a smashing success for a long time. At some point, our circulation through the 10 towns we served reached a high of over 26,000, almost 10,000 more than when I joined the staff in 1977. Our reach in the Sports Department was nationwide; I went to nine Super Bowls during my tenure and visited NFL stadiums in every city in the league. Gobis was also a regular at Providence College basketball games and Big East Tournaments, and we did it all with our expanded staff, winning awards for our local sports coverage as well as for the national stuff. We were respected and admired by most of our readers (well, there were holdouts that criticized us at every turn) and our peers at both large and small papers.

Gradually, however, the gravy train ground to a halt. Emerald Square was a boon for a while, but after a while, the big-box stores no longer felt the need to throw advertising cash at the "Dinky Daily." And that also came at the expense of local retailers, many of which went out of business when faced with the competition of the shiny new mall. One of those, in fact, was my father's clothing store in Mansfield, which had been a staple for local shoppers since 1936 but closed its doors in 1991 because shoppers thought they wanted the trendy new stuff sold at the mall. Only when it was too late did they realize they missed the reliable store where they could buy their everyday clothes for reasonable prices.

Classified advertising also dropped precipitously -- first under the pressure of local "shopper" publications that contained no local news but lots of coupons and lower rates for classified advertising. Then came the online revolution; people could advertise their wares for free on various websites, rendering newspaper classified ads to the mists of antiquity. 

We, as well as almost every newspaper in existence in the 1990s, also made a tactical error where the Internet was concerned. We all created websites and put our product on it for viewers to view free of charge, thinking the Internet to be a promotional tool that would spur people to go out and buy our newspaper. Nobody in the industry realized until it was too late that readers would get used to getting their news for free, and thus had no reason at all to pay for the product.

Behind the scenes, another problem was brewing for The Sun Chronicle.

The paper had been owned since 1971 by absentee owners from Wisconsin, the United Communications Corp. (owners of the Kenosha News and several small print and broadcast entities), and for most of that time, it was a benign and benevolent partnership. Kenosha did not interfere with our editorial content and gave us all the resources we needed to stay on the cutting edge of the industry, while at the same time sucking away a hefty portion of our large profit margin to prop up its other holdings.

That wasn't a problem for the longest time, but when The Sun Chronicle's revenues started to fall after the turn of the century, Kenosha was no longer able to squeeze blood from a stone. Suddenly, despite all our awards and the demonstrated skill of our news, sports and photography staffs, we became a drain on UCC's resources.

Our benefactor,
Howard Brown

As long as he was alive, a man named Howard Brown was the benevolent godfather of The Sun Chronicle. The respected owner of the Kenosha News was as supportive of our success as a newspaper as he was of any other holding in the UCC family. But when he died in 2011, the writing was on the wall for us. When Brown's daughters took the reins, they looked us as an asset that was annoyingly far away from the home base -- and when we stopped sending a tsunami of profits into UCC's coffers, we became expendable.

I recall a meeting that was held in our newsroom with the Brown sisters and their new general manager, some slick Midwestern douchebag that had no idea at all how to comprehend or address the unique New England culture. This pompous fool stood before us and said he wanted to transform us into a paper that was "more local than local." 

I did a short video to endorse Bill Parcells
for membership in the Patriots' Hall of Fame.

"You have no need to cover the New England Patriots," he said as I stood directly in his line of sight. "You have no need to cover any of the pro or college sports. Your mission should be to cover anything that's played on the local playgrounds." I turned my back on the guy and walked back to my desk in an obvious pique. And why not? I had covered the Patriots from rags to riches for a period spanning five decades, won awards for my coverage, and became the longest-tenured writer on the beat briefly. I worked hard to hold my own with the big papers, and while I wasn't a star reporter by any means, I could match story-for-story the output of any paper that would send multiple writers to one game. I got myself on TV and did radio interviews on WFAN and many other big stations across the continent, and I occasionally wrote stories for papers in opposing cities that were looking for a Patriots sidebar. And even well into my retirement, I still have a role in Foxboro as a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame Nominating Committee.

Not long after, buyouts were offered to a number of longest-tenured employees. I was one of them, but the terms were laughable and I was only starting to realize gains in my retirement account since turning it over to a personal financial advisor. I needed to work a little longer, and I did -- working myself into a minor stroke over the Christmas holidays in 2014. I recovered quickly -- even spent a week in Phoenix about a month later to cover Super Bowl 49 against doctors' orders -- but working conditions in Attleboro continued to degenerate into chaos with staff reductions coming almost every three months.

The Kenosha (Wis.) News. Thanks for nothing.

At the beginning of August 2018, we heard the news we had anticipated for many months before -- UCC had sold the paper to a bunch of venture capitalists based in Canada, who had already snapped up the Pawtucket Times and Woonsocket Call to form the "Tri-Boro News Media Corp." Members of the Brown family came to our offices, shook our hands and thanked us for our hard work. Funny thing -- not long afterward, they sold all of UCC's holdings and got out of the news biz altogether.

Twenty-eight days later, I and several other news staffers, including our publisher, were simply told that our jobs had been eliminated. There was a little compensation, not much, but there was no real reason for me to blow my stack or pout. My investments were doing very well. At least they didn't escort me out a back door, as they had with others. They even gave me three days to clean out my desk and file cabinets.

Besides, I was tired. The long hours over the length of my career had taken their toll, and I had planned to retire after I turned 65 anyway -- a target date of March 17, 2019, in fact. Even though the retirement was forced seven months before my plans, I was prepared and ready. To linger on would have been to face longer hours and far more work to produce even a remote facsimile what our staff had created. I just didn't have it in me to continue under those circumstances. So I bade farewell to print journalism altogether after just one more year as an AP part-timer, and committed myself fully to a new "career" as a sports play-by-play announcer for North Attleborough Community Television, Mansfield Cable Access and Foxboro Cable Access.

Gobis was the master of getting all the school scores.

My friend Peter Gobis stuck around for a few more years before retiring. Now 75, he still contributes as a part-timer when he's not lounging and tanning on the beaches of south Florida. Gradually, the paper has called some of its former luminaries back to its pages, including former editor Mike Kirby (who writes more now on a daily basis than he did when he worked for Gobis and me at the start of his career), former copy editor Tom Reilly and former political reporter Jim Hand. 

But its writing, editing and photography staffs are now bare-bones due to the venture capitalists' bottom-lining of the operation. Amazingly, they still put out a fairly good product -- definitely better than most of the chain-owned daily papers left in New England, although, for obvious reasons, the coverage of breaking news and municipal government is extremely shallow and late in delivery. For instance, decisions made at a Mansfield town meeting don't mean anything to Mansfield readers if the reports come three days after the fact. Where the paper used to have veteran reporters based in every town, it's now basically down to one fellow that handles the bulk of the newsy stuff. A couple of younger reporters and a precious few part-timers have come up with interesting features on a regular basis, but so-called enterprise reporting is non-existent. And today, much of the paper is written by a news-gathering operation called MassLive, based out of Springfield, which has expanded state-wide and is syndicating much of its output to a network of smaller papers. 

The lone full-timer sportswriter, Tyler Hetu, works his ass off to try to maintain a level of high school coverage comparable to the traditions of the newspaper. But the paper no longer has a local voice for sports opinions. It lacks a columnist willing or able to delve into topics of local interest. Instead, the paper devotes space to overly long missives about fishing, and essays about pro sports from a copy editor that should be repurposed to tell people why Bishop Feehan is leaving the Catholic Central League, why there's such a huge turnover of coaches at King Philip Regional High or whether Attleboro High made the right choice for its new football coach.

One of my joys, doing all-star teams.

Back in my days as a columnist, I focused a lot upon the Patriots because I covered them on a regular basis. I didn't devote many columns to pro teams I didn't cover in person because I could add nothing more from a personal presence to what the readers already saw on TV. Otherwise, I'd say at least 60 percent of my columns over the last 15 years of my career were sharply focused upon local topics and issues that impacted our local schools and our local athletes. Some people loved them, others hated them, but people read them. 

There have been other missteps by the paper as well. They've tried on occasion to pander to the minority of angry conservatives in this part of the commonwealth by hiring underqualified and unreadable columnists to spit out their vile MAGA tropes on the editorial pages. 

The Sun Chronicle does get complaints from the MAGA element about its supposed liberal leanings -- which, I would contend, is an accurate representation of its readership area. Only one local town, Rehoboth, gave convicted felon Donald Trump a thin majority of its votes in the last election. Prior to 2024, other elections had been a clean Democrat sweep in the Sun Chronicle's circulation area. But the loudmouths demanded a local conservative voice, and they got a couple. The most recent one didn't last for more than a few weeks. His predecessor was a long-time grouch that commented on every post the paper would put on Facebook, whether he had any working knowledge of the subject matter or not, and for reasons that still escape a lot of people, the paper gave him a weekly forum in which to dispense his wretched ramblings. 

All he succeeded in doing, other than briefly placating the few other right-wing extremists that demanded their voice be heard, was to embarrass himself and the newspaper until the editors wised up and sent him back to his old life as an Internet tough guy.

I've also been told that the paper's decision to eliminate its own delivery services and rely upon the U.S. Postal Service for home delivery has been a public-relations disaster. People who were used to having the daily paper on their doorstep when they woke up now must wait until they return home from work to read it -- if it gets delivered at all. 

It seems as if nothing has worked. Despite the best efforts of the very hard-working journalists that remain, the paper's circulation has dropped to an estimated 7,000 papers a day -- maybe fewer. It's tough to get an accurate number. So they have joined a number of other publications throughout the country in reducing the printed product, while trying to maintain a breaking-news presence on its Internet site. 

The weekly NFL picks contest was a big hit with The Sun Chronicle's readership.

Today, almost eight full years after I left, people still come up to me throughout our many communities and they tell me how much they miss my columns and the level of coverage that I, Gobis and our numerous fellow sports staffers offered the communities in our heyday. They particularly seem to miss my annual "Beat Fearless" contest, in which the readers would try to do better on weekly NFL predictions than me, and potentially win prizes. Maybe it was popular because it was pretty easy to beat me, I don't know for sure, but I was glad to offer that weekly feature for more than 30 years. 

Of course, I thank them for their kind words. But I always ask them to give Tyler Hetu the benefit of the doubt because I know how extremely hard he has worked to become part of the Attleboro-area sports community. We didn't do him any favors by doing the extensive job we did, but the job hasn't been something a lone writer could truly handle since the early 1970s -- which the penny-pinching ownership doesn't understand, nor bothers to care about.

I don't know what the future holds for my former newspaper. I chat with some people from time to time and the general consensus is that it's holding on by its fingertips. Maybe the owners will merge it with what's left of the Times and Call, which will fall flat with readers in the SC's northern towns that don't give a rat's ass about anything that happens in Rhode Island. Or maybe they'll just shutter it altogether. New local ownership doesn't seem to be a viable option, and I'm not sure the other regional behemoth, Gannett (formerly GateHouse when it snapped up almost all of the other local dailies in this part of the country) is in a financial position to complete its reign over the region. The end of an era might truly be coming.

Maybe someday I'll write more extensively about my career -- although to be honest, it would work better as a script for a situation comedy about a small newspaper with a cast of truly quirky and lovable characters. There aren't many villains to be found among the people with whom I worked over 40-plus years, and I have enough stories to tell to last several seasons. And maybe if Netflix gives me a shot, I can tell some of the more saucy stories that transpired (or at least juice up some of the more mundane stories to help the ratings).

We even had swag back in the day. 

But I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread about the future of newsgathering in the towns where I worked for most of my adult life. Americans need to get their news from reliable sources that include checks and balances throughout the editorial process. Too much of what is called "news" these days comes from online sites that crank out whatever shit they can throw at a wall to see if it sticks. Whether nationally or locally, too much information is unedited and unchecked for factuality, and laced with efforts to indoctrinate its readers to a preferred point of view. Or it's just mind-numbing bullshit that saps the general intelligence of the populace. 

I honestly have to believe there would be a lot fewer people that believe the earth is flat, that vaccines are bad, and that Donald Trump is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ if we had a stronger and more vital news media. And that starts with the hometown papers that tell you what your town's select board or school committee has decided, what damage that storm did, why the tax rate is going up, and how your kid did in last night's big basketball game.

I'll always be proud of what I and my co-workers produced for the many years I worked for The Sun Chronicle. I'm most proud of the decision I made only a few years after coming on board to begin the equalization of coverage for high school boys' and girls' sports. That may be my only true legacy, and it's a good one to have. 

Despite all the jokes and snide comments that dog the paper today (you know, "The Slum Comical" and so on ... ) and did even back when we were fully-staffed and selling like hotcakes, this newspaper was as good a local paper as you could find almost anywhere -- and I know, because I used to buy local papers in the NFL cities I would visit, metro and suburban both, and bring the copies back to Attleboro for everyone on staff to peruse. We compared ourselves to those, learned from what they did well and guarded ourselves against what they did poorly. Whatever was within our capabilities to do well, we tried our best to do it.

I just can't imagine our area without The Sun Chronicle. Simple as that.

MARK FARINELLA worked from February 1977 to September 1987 and from September 1989 to August 2018 for The Sun Chronicle. 

Lee to leave KP football job.

Former KP football coach Brian Lee (left), joined by his father, John.

There will be a new look to the King Philip Regional High School football program this fall, as for the first time in 22 years, the Warriors will take the field without Brian Lee on the sidelines.

Lee, who coached King Philip in eight MIAA Super Bowls and won four of them over 21 seasons, has resigned the head coaching position according to the school's official website.

“Coach Lee helped set the standard for what King Philip football represents,” KP athletic director Gary Brown said in the school's statement. “His dedication to our student-athletes and his commitment to building a program centered on teamwork, accountability, and pride have left a lasting mark on this school and community.”

Lee, a Walpole native who played football for his legendary father, John Lee, at Walpole High, was the 12th head football coach in the history of King Philip Regional High and its longest-tenured, far exceeding the tenures of Tom Hartley (1968-76) and Mosi Tatupu (1995-2001). Lee lives in Norfolk with his wife, Colleen, and sons J.T. and Payton.

Lee took over the KP program and 2005 and finished with a record of 176-62, a .759 winning percentage. His KP teams were 31-9 in postseason play, and the Warriors completed a perfect 13-0 season in 2025 with a Division 3 Super bowl triumph over North Attleboro, 21-10, on Dec. 5 at Gillette Stadium. His teams won eight Hockomock League championships during his tenure.

“Coach Lee has made a meaningful impact on our school both as a teacher and as a coach,” said KPHS Principal Nicole Bottomley. “He has built strong relationships with students and colleagues and has helped shape the experience of so many young people during their time at King Philip.”

Lee had coached at Walpole and Curry College before arriving at KP in 2005. He taught physical education and wellness, and he will remain in those roles. 

“For more than two decades, Coach Lee has been an important part of the King Philip community both in the classroom and on the field,” said the district's superintendent Dr. Richard Drolet. “He has been a positive role model and influenced thousands of students through his work in the classroom and through athletics. We appreciate everything he has given to King Philip.”

The school will begin a search for a new head coach immediately. 

The Owner's Box, Ep. 62.

My mother's childhood home in central Florida has finally been razed.

It's a cornucopia of commentary in Episode 62 of Mansfield's favorite audio podcast, as I turned a mundane Saturday night into an energy-filled session behind the microphone. 

First, I discussed the process that produced the three nominees for this year's fan-voted Patriots Hall of Fame berth. I don't violate any of the rules involved in our supposedly secret discussions, although I do reveal what I said and how I said it -- which I'd think is perfectly fine, given that we took our votes and now you fans are voting for the winner and can through April 28 at patriots.com (click on the link and you'll be directed immediately to the voting page!).

Then I offer some reflections about the Artemis II spaceflight. Yes, I did misspell the name in the link's tagline, but it was a two-finger typist's mistake -- the "i" key is next to the "u" key, and I simply missed the edit at around 2 in the morning. Anyway, having been alive and aware since the initial Mercury flights in the early 1960s, I found myself overwhelmed with joy when the crew capsule checked in at the end of the communications blackout during their re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.

Up third is a personal story. I learned this week that the small house in Williston, Fla., where my mother was raised and where I used to spend at least two weeks every year during my childhood, was finally torn down after years of falling into disrepair. That was the last vestige of my mixed-culture upbringing, in which I was exposed to classic Massachusetts liberalism and grass-roots Southern conservatism in the middle of central Florida during the 1960s. Fortunately for me, the former won out over the latter.

Finally comes our Lightning Round, and one of the topics is the addition to a new commercial that is near the top of my "I Hate This Commerical" list. Nothing may ever topple that insipid "Kars-4-Kids" jingle from the top spot, but the newest addition came close. And the most maddening aspect of this new addition is that I use the product that the commercial sells, and I have been so satisfied with it for more than a decade, so I can't exact my usual penalty and shun the product.

It's all in the accurately-numbered Episode 62, just waiting for you at this link or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your Patriots Hall of Fame nominees.

The nominees: PK Adam Vinatieri, OG/OT Logan Mankins, TE Rob Gronkowski.

I've been a member of the Patriots Hall of Fame Nominating Committee since its inaugural meeting in 2007, and this may be the first time that my three selections have been the three that appear on the fans' ballot.

As a result of the committee's meeting on April 1, the three former players on this year's ballot are, in alphabetical order, tight end Rob Gronkowski, offensive guard/tackle Logan Mankins and placekicker Adam Vinatieri. Three very worthy nominees, but as they said repeatedly in those "Highlander" movies, "There can be only one!" 

And that's a shame.

Since the beginning of our august panel, many of us have worried -- some not so silently -- that with the uptick in the Patriots' level of success during thew two "dynastic eras" under Bill Belichick, we might run into situations where worthy players of the current era would stack up in a holding pattern over the Hall of Fame at Patriot Place, facing very long delays in landing a berth in the team shrine.

Just ask current coach Mike Vrabel. He had to wait through seven balloting sessions before finally being honored.

Well, right now we have such a situation. This will be Vinatieri's second turn on the fans' ballot and Gronkowski's first, but it's the fourth for Mankins, who made the final three in 2022, 2023 and 2025.

If you're wondering how we come to these conclusions, here's a quick explanation.

This year, 20 panel members made it to the meeting at Gillette Stadium; a few of the active reporters were unable to attend because of job responsibilities. But for more than an hour, we made our nominations and then offered our reasons, then the nominated individuals were debated before ballots were finally cast. In secret balloting, we were instructed to list our choices in order of preference. The individual we list first gets five points, second gets three and the third gets one point. 

Then, Patriots VP-Communications Stacey James calculates the voting and a week later, he announces the selections and fan balloting begins on patriots.com. In fact, click on that address and you can vote, too.

This year, I had a gameplan entering the meeting. I wanted to nominate Vinatieri for the second straight year -- not only because of his accomplishments on the field for the Patriots, but also for the fact that he has gained membership in the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite having lost in the vote for entry into the Patriots' shrine to another first-time nominee of more recent vintage, Julian Edelman.  

But someone beat me to it, so I went to Plan B -- nominating the elephant in the room. Everyone came to this meeting feeling that Gronkowski would not only be a first-year-eligible nominee (a player has to be retired from football for four years to be eligible), but he'd probably be a runaway winner in the fan voting as well. 

So I stood before my peers and said that while I was nominating Gronkowski officially, I still wished Vinatieri would make it into the Hall of Fame first because without his clutch nature and the incredible kicks he made leading to the Patriots' first Super Bowl championship, maybe there wouldn't be any dynasties to celebrate.

Stacey James guides the committee at a 2014 meeting.

But, as I also said, I had no problem at all with Gronk's path to the Hall of Fame. After all, he may well have been the best tight end ever to play the game, even if he hasn't put a ring on Taylor Swift's finger. He played with a joy that couldn't be contained even under the restrictive stewardship of Belichick. And speaking of joy, I tried to lighten everyone's spirits a bit by telling the funny story (at least it was to me) of how Gronk, a native of one of the Meccas of Buffalo wings (Amherst, N.Y.) once recommended what he thought was the best bleu cheese dressing ever to accompany a plate of wings.

For the sake of accuracy, it was a local brand in northern New York called Rootie's. Sold only in the markets around Gronk's hometown, it came in big mayonnaise jars and could be purchased online at an incredible markup to preserve its freshness in shipping.

Gronk's suggestion hit the spot.

At Gronk's recommendation, I did buy a couple of jars for about $80 total, including the shipping in big Styrofoam boxes filled with dry ice. The expense was steep, but damned if Gronk wasn't correct. It was the best bleu cheese dressing I've ever tasted, especially because of the huge chunks of cheese that burst with flavor when mixing with a super-spicy wing sauce.

I actually got a few laughs with that tale. I'm getting better at stand-up comedy in my old age.

Don't think I'm forgetting Mankins, either. Not only was he a tough-as-nails offensive lineman from the really old school of football (remember when he played almost a whole season with a torn ACL?), he's also sent three talented offspring to Bishop Feehan, two of whom played football at a very high level and the other a softball star, and he's a damned fine offensive line coach there as well. He absolutely deserves to be in, but the timing just isn't right.

At this point, I must point out that I'm enjoined against revealing the actual discourse that took place during our meeting; it's one of the rules all committee members have to follow. But as always, our discussions were civil and frequently jocular in nature. And this year, we actually convinced James that there was one change that needed to be made in our rules, although that won't come into play until next year.

We have something called a Senior Selection Committee that was supposed to meet every four years (but hasn't met in 10 years). It's composed of the most senior members of the committee, and our job has been to put worthy Patriots of the distant past into to the Hall without subjecting them to the fans' vote, although they have to be 25 years removed from their careers before we can consider them. 

We have added center Jon Morris, defensive tackle Houston Antwine and offensive tackle Leon Gray, but have been limited in that up to now, James limited eligible players to those that had actually been on the three-player fan balloting at least once. That has kept at least two worthy potential nominees from consideration, but after some vigorous discussion on April 1, James agreed to open the doors to worthy veterans of the distant past even if they haven't made the fan ballot.

I could tell you the name of one fellow about whom we'll be talking quite a bit when the Senior Committee meets next year -- but if I did, I'd have to kill you. So just stay tuned, or drop me a line and let me know who you'd think would be best for us to consider next year. By the way, Adam Vinatieri won't be eligible for Senior Committee consideration until 2046, when I will be a very grumpy 92 years old if he doesn't get in before that.

You can vote for this year's Hall of Fame selection until April 28, and it won't be long after that when the winner will be announced. The Patriots will most likely plan the celebration in the plaza opposite the Hall of Fame for sometime during the coming preseason schedule, depending upon that person's availability.

I've voted. Just once so far (for Vinatieri, natch), but trying to stuff the ballot box is one of the quirky joys of the Patriots Hall of Fame selection process. You can vote once every day from a recognized IP address, so get to it, folks.

Who knows? Maybe for the first time ever, we can coax a three-way tie out of the process.

MARK FARINELLA covered the Patriots for a total of 43 years -- one game for the Westfield Evening News in 1976, 40 years for The Sun Chronicle, two for The Patriot Ledger and a lot of part-time years for The Associated Press. And he did write about three games the Patriots played in their first year at Schaefer Stadium (1971) for the Mansfield News. So yes, he belongs on this committee. 

The Owner's Box, Ep. 61.2.

One of the permanent residents of Briny Breezes, Fla., takes a stroll on a sunny day.

I've gone from doing no podcasts at all to cranking them out like a machine.

 

In Episode 61.2 of Mansfield's most popular podcast (I think), I explain and solve the mystery of the missing Episode 60 -- which I was going to call "The Lost Episode," but then I found it.

And because I didn't want to just waste a whole episode on what I did wrong the last time out, I called my old friend Alex Salachi, who's vacationing in Florida. As he is my broadcast partner for Mansfield High basketball telecasts, and as the season ended about a month ago, I thought we'd spend some time talking about how the two Hornet teams did this year and their prospects for the future.

We also talked for a while about where he stays in Florida -- it's called Briny Breezes, and it's a tiny trailer park not too far from Mar-A-Lago on the Atlantic coast that incorporated into a municipality about 60 years ago. There are about 500 full-time human residents there, as well as hundreds of thousands of tiny lizards (one pictured above) -- some of which can't get out of the way of a car's wheels in time to avoid becoming ex-lizards as we drive through.

The plot of land where Briny Breezes sits has been suggested in the past as a possible location of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Adult Film Store. Indeed, a few years ago, an anonymous investor offered the municipality $502 million for the entire parcel. The voting residents turned down the offer -- but they did suggest that their heads may be turned if the offer approaches $1 billion.

There are other topics afoot as well, and it's 54 minutes of information and mirth -- and the link is right below.

Another tough blow to local golf.

Teeing off to start the final round of the AAGA Open at Norton Country Club.

I still read the newspaper for which I toiled for some 42 years or so, although digitally rather than ink-and-paper -- hey, it's the 2020s -- and I got a huge shock when I reached Monday morning's lead editorial on the Opinion page.

The big news of the day, beyond saving Capron Park Zoo in Attleboro and the local "No Kings" protests that will surely be mocked by the irritating cadre of right-wing zealots in this corner of southeastern Massachusetts, was that the Attleboro Area Golf Association's annual "City Open" tournament -- which hasn't been conducted within the city limits for several years now because many local courses have disappeared -- was welcoming Ledgemont Country Club of Seekonk into its fold. But the reason was even more newsworthy.

It was partially because Norton Country Club, which has had a six-decade association with the AAGA and been host to many of the most memorable moments of the annual tournament as one of its founding sites, had severed its partnership with the local association.

The story actually broke Friday on the front sports page of The Sun Chronicle, a story I completely scanned past and missed when I viewed the online edition. At the time, writer Mike Kirby tried to get a comment from Norton Country Club management, but could not reach anyone before deadline. So the question remained unanswered: Why would Norton CC, one of the area's most revered patches of property to local golfers, bail out of a decades-long association with a group whose sole mission is to promote the growth of local golf?

After reading the editorial, I immediately reached out to someone I know that might have the answers. But since I'm no longer a "professional" journalist and not working for an accredited news-gathering operation, I told this individual that any information that was shared would remain just between us. So while I may know a little more as I write this than I did a couple of hours ago, it's my fervent hope that The Sun Chronicle will continue to strive to get on-the-record answers.

OK, I understand that some of you that read this may feel that this issue doesn't really amount to more than a hill of beans compared to the many other issues facing the world today -- war in Iran, rising gasoline prices, corruption at the highest levels of government to start, let alone how bad the traffic will be in Foxboro when 60,000 soccer fans with no knowledge of the area converge upon Gillette Stadium (screw this "Boston Stadium" nonsense) about 30 minutes before each World Cup game is supposed to start.

Besides, more people get upset when Sydney Sweeney's bra size is misreported in the national media than anything else that's happening. Fake news!

But for someone that tried to be a golfer at one time in his life, and enjoyed covering it for the local newspaper for decades, the erosion of the Attleboro Area Golf Association's championship tournament to just three different sites in four days is worrisome. The demise of several golf courses in the area is already a trend that may be irreversible, and Norton Country Club's decision to turn its back on the AAGA may be a blow from which the association won't be able to recover.

Great personal moments. There weren't many.

I tried to learn how to play golf in the 1980s and maintained a playing relationship with the sport into the 2000s, before both the cost of playing and the pain in my knees started spiraling out of control. I was totally self-taught, managed to break 100 legitimately a few times (without Donald Trump's foot wedge tactics or his taking "gimme" putts from 20 feet out), and even popped in an eagle at Hillside Country Club in Rehoboth from about 110 yards out, choking up on a 7-iron from an elevated fairway lie and making a perfect swing to send the ball on a direct line from there to the pin.

I should have stopped playing then and there. Best stroke of my life, and I knew right then I wasn't ever going to top it. 

While I knew I would never challenge for a berth in the City Open, I did want to get to know the game better. So for a couple of summers, I instituted a feature that appeared in the Sunday editions of The Sun Chronicle called "The Local Links." I'd approach the management of golf courses throughout the region and ask them if I could play a full round with a photographer in tow, and I'd describe the course and its unique challenges while our photog captured the natural beauty of the surroundings. I even offered to pay for the round, but most of the time, they let me play for free. 

It turned out to be one of our most popular recurring features, and it gave me the opportunity to play on a lot of courses on which I'd really have no business being otherwise. I played all sorts of different courses -- from the lush fairways of Highland Country Club in Attleboro, to the twisting turns of the compact layout at Wentworth Hills in Plainville, to the hacker's delights like Locust Valley in Attleboro and Sun Valley in Rehoboth. From those, and so many others, I learned that while golf may be tedious to watch on television to some individuals, playing it and playing it well was even more of a mental challenge than it was a physical one.

During that time, I did have a few favorite courses to play -- mostly the ones where I could get on quickly and play by myself. One was Easton Country Club (now owned by Stonehill College), which had a great pro shop and long and wide fairways whose toughest hazards were the mounds of goose poop that often couldn't be avoided. Another was Rehoboth Country Club, kind of a hidden gem that was relatively easy to play but had some very challenging holes among its 18. And it was always easy to get on the course there.

But my favorite was Norton Country Club -- even back when it was just a wet and wild nine-holer that loved to swallow my errantly-struck Titleist balls that disappeared into the swampy muck bordering the narrow fairways. Some of those balls, which weren't cheap, are probably still buried there.

Once Norton was expanded to 18 holes, it truly became the gem of our local golfing world -- at least until just a few forested feet away to the east, the spectacular TPC Boston layout was carved out of another patch of the disappearing Great Woods.

Golfers knew we were coming with this display.

For a while, local golf was booming. TPC Boston hosted the annual Deutsche Bank Championship, bringing the best names in the game to our little corner of the world. Meanwhile, Peter Gobis and I covered the absolute shit out of the AAGA Tournament every year, approaching it as if it was the U.S. Open. Four days, four different courses, and we'd try to get every single angle and story we could out of the local championship. 

For the most part, the reader response was excellent -- because, after all, we were writing about hometown heroes. Gobis and I could be seen prominently while executing our duties, riding our free golf cart with Sun Chronicle logos plastered on it (although I did buy several polo shirts at every course as compensation).

Oh, yeah, we had a few critics. One was Ed Duckworth, a former Patriots beat writer for the Providence Journal that lived in our area, who used to needle me about how the paper would kick almost all other sports news from its pages over four days in August for a local golf tournament. He was probably just bustin' my chops, but I'm sure there were others that had no investment in the game and thus no interest.

But Gobis and I made the commitment. We often saw Marc Forbes. a gentleman's gentleman, make the triumphant march to the final hole at Highland to put the finishing touches on another of his 16 victories. We stood amid the fairways of Locust Valley, freezing our asses off because we chose to wear shorts on a day in which the temperature unexpectedly dropped into the 40s, watching John "Buck" Renner practically reach the green on a par 4 with his powerful drives. 

We watched Buck's son, Jim, totally dominate the Hillside course in 2002 on his way to a final-round 69 and his second tournament victory. And we saw Davis Chatfield, a diminutive lad from Bishop Feehan High School, stroll confidently down the 18th fairway at Foxborough Country Club to finish a 16-stroke victory in 2015, hitting in the 60s for three of the four rounds.

Jim Renner dominated the AAGA Open.

Jim Renner briefly reached the PGA Tour, and now Chatfield is there and showing great promise. Not bad for a couple of alumni of a local tournament that is approaching its 66th playing this August.

Alas, the times are not favoring local golf. 

Two of the original locations of the tournament. Highland and Locust Valley, are golf courses no more. Highland is a "nature preserve" whose immaculately manicured fairways have overgrown with weeds and scrub, with a few walking paths open to the public. Locust Valley is also as overgrown as it can get, although not much grew there in the summertime anyway. There are barely a few reminders of its past life as a popular golf course -- especially popular to legions of young golfers that used to sneak on and get in their licks just before sundown. Both are ticketed for future housing development.

Ditto for Heather Hill Country Club in Plainville. For years a popular place for wedding receptions, Heather Hill benefitted from the golf boom and expanded to 27 holes before the boom turned to bust. Again, housing development is the culprit -- a planned 384-unit development for residents 55 years of age and older.

Some courses continue to hang on, but it's far more expensive to have memberships because costs have risen to maintain the facilities. It's simple economics, and the lure of big bucks from developers is always nagging the owners to cash in their chips and get out of the golf business while the getting is good.

As a result, the Attleboro Open is no longer played within a five-mile radius of Attleboro.

Don't get me wrong, Ledgemont is a fine facility that will be a welcome addition to the AAGA rotation of Foxborough and Wentworth Hills. I don't think I played it during my "The Local Links" tour, but I an pretty sure it was on my list before we discontinued the series. An aerial view of the course is very appealing.

Ledgemont may even give the final threesomes a bit of a break. As it will be the only course played after the two-round cut at Wentworth Hills, the final competitors will be able to iron out their third-round mistakes and approach the final day with confidence borne from their previous experience.

Davis Chatfield is on the rise.

But it's clearly a reflection of changing times that the AAGA Open is fighting for its life. It does irk me when I hear stories about how members at some of the courses are pissed off at the AAGA for taking charge of their precious patches of turf for maybe 12 hours on a summer weekend day. One friggin' day at the clubhouse bar once a year apparently can't be set aside for an organization that promotes local golf, conducts several different tournaments for local golfers of all ages and genders, and awards scholarships to young competitors who might be interested in pursuing further development of the game in college. In fact, many youthful participants in the AAGA Open have gone on to play in college. I know. I've interviewed them. 

Davis Chatfield is an excellent example of the kind of golfer that the AAGA helped send to the rest of the golf world, whether it was to Notre Dame or the PGA Tour, where he has proven himself to be an on-the-rise talent. I'm sure he would have found a way to this level of accomplishment if the AAGA Open didn't exist, but I have to believe that exposure to a tournament environment at a young age, regardless of the competition level, is helpful toward the education of a player learning the ropes.

I cherish this award.

I just get the feeling that this is now all at risk. Local golf needs an advocate, and the AAGA has been just that. Bob Gay and Bobby Beach, the co-presidents of the association, have worked tirelessly to promote the game. So have all the members of the AAGA committee. And I don't mind telling you, I'm proud as hell that a hacker like me could be inducted into the AAGA Hall of Fame, as I was in 2010 along with Gobis and North TV executive director Peter Gay, for our assistance in promoting the game locally.

I'd really love to hear the explanation from those in charge of Norton Country Club why they feel their course is now too important, or can't be bothered, to take one day out of their so-precious schedule to host a popular local tournament that has been a centerpiece of its very existence for more than 60 years. They'd probably tell me it was none of my business, so I'll leave that task to the professional sportswriters -- but I assure you, it's a question I eventually want to hear answered.

MARK FARINELLA still has a bag filled with expensive Titleist irons in a closet, but they need re-gripping and there's some rust on the shafts -- just like their owner. Make him an offer at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.