The big red schoolhouse is coming down.

Voters in Mansfield have agreed to tear down the last of its neighborhood schools.

Back in the early 1950s, my father looked at the balance sheets of the clothing store he and his brothers owned in Mansfield, Mass., and realized that the cash was rolling in. Really rolling in, in fact.

So he did what countless other sons of immigrants did during the postwar economic boom -- he strove for a better life for himself, his wife, and hopefully, a new generation that would eventually be coming along. He bought some land.

In the Mansfield of that era, many of the Italian families that came to America and then to our little town at the turn of the century were still clustered in what was called "the North End," very close to the huge Lowney Chocolate Factory on the railroad tracks that had offered employment and even housing to the newcomers so they would gladly do the jobs that none of the snooty white Anglo-Saxon Protestants on the other side of Chauncy and Pratt streets wanted to do. Those folks envisioned themselves as the rightful heirs to those that stepped off the Mayflower. My forefathers, on the other hand, were the spaghetti benders that stampeded en masse out of steerage.

My dad in front of the bakery in 1936.

But the Italians and Sicilians were resourceful and hard-working people. My grandfather opened a bakery to satisfy the taste buds of the town's ruling class, and his sons delivered the fresh rolls and loaves all over the region on bicycles. Then when they got older and longed for a better life, they seized the moment. My Uncle Santino crossed the imaginary dividing line between the ethnic groups, bought a decaying old stable at an important intersection, turned it into a clothing store that would be expanded and reborn several times over the next 60 years, and his brothers followed him into the business and started raking in the loot.

Step Two was assimilation. And the easiest way to achieve that was to buy land in parts of town where no Italians had gone before. Before long, all four Farinella brothers made it past that border and put down roots in what had been the strongholds of the Anglos that had settled the town. 

For my father, the plot of land he coveted was close to a swampy marsh on sparsely-built Dean Street. There was a large man-made pond to the east of it, dug out of those Rumford River-fed swamplands by a knifemaker and metals forger in the 1700s. My dad's parcel was almost fully dry and the rest easily reclaimable -- there was no such thing as "wetlands protection" in those days -- and by 1953, construction would begin on a five-room, one-bath, three-bedroom ranch to house him, his wife, and a player to be named later that was on the way.

Mom and little me in the unfinished garage.

By January 1954, construction on me was finished. In August, the house followed. We moved in, and my parents lived there for the rest of their lives. I spent most of the first 17 years of my life in that house, then the next 45 years or so wandering around the Hockomock League, and I returned to the house upon my mother's death in 2015 -- and here I remain.

I mentioned earlier that there weren't many houses on this street when my father bought the land. Most that were here were built between World War I and the 1930s on the higher-and-drier section at the northern terminus of the street (only a few tenths of a mile away). But one feature that stood out louder and prouder than all the other structures was a tall, red-brick schoolhouse that was probably the pride of a growing Mansfield when it opened in 1923.

In the background in 1955, the Roland Green School.

For all of my life, the Roland Green School has towered over Dean Street. I say "towered" loosely, as it is only a two-story building -- but in the architectural style of the day, it rose well above the houses surrounding it, each story was far taller than it needed to be, and the high-peaked roof made it look like an imposing skyscraper -- especially to the first- , second- and third-graders that attended it for most of its existence.

Mansfield was always big on neighborhood schools. There were schools in every part of town for every age group. Generations were born and raised with pride that they attended the Roland Green, or the Paine, the John Berry, the Spaulding or the Central schools and didn't interact with the other kids in town before coming together at Mansfield High School eventually. But one-by-one, almost all of those have been repurposed (the John Berry in West Mansfield became a satellite YMCA facility, and the Park Row, itself a former high school, became Town Hall), or met the wrecking ball. Mansfield consolidated today's schools in a complex that includes a high school, a former high school that's now a middle school, and two large elementary schools, and the need for satellite schools diminished.

Roland Green, however, clung to life. Elementary grades were phased out, but the building found new purpose as a pre-school facility for many years before it closed with no fanfare at all after the 2025 school year. The building is old, environmentally inefficient and in increasing disrepair. Upon moving the pre-school classes out to other school buildings where space was now available because of declining enrollment, town government immediately set to the task of planning the Roland Green's demise.

That was set in stone at a special town meeting Tuesday night. Before the bare minimum of a quorum and with hardly a peep of public discussion, the meeting voted to turn the building over from the school department to the control of the Select Board, which will immediately set to the task of demolishing it. The remaining property will then be carved into three lots for the building of three duplex houses.

This took me by surprise, and it really shouldn't have.

Quite matter-of-factly, it was explained at the town meeting that these plans had been discussed in public meetings for quite some time, and all that was now needed was the rubber stamp from voters to start the wrecking ball rolling and the cash rolling in from the resale of the property to developers. I had heard nothing of it, but the newspapers never cover municipal meetings anymore, and the first mention I saw of it was in a preview of the town meeting in the local daily that ran on the very day that the meeting was to take place.

Yes, I know that municipal meetings are shown on local cable. No, I don't watch them. I don't have any axes to grind with anyone else at the present time, and I'm convinced that the only people that watch municipal meetings on a regular basis are those with specific and obsessive grievances. Go ahead, try to convince me otherwise.

And no, I didn't attend the meeting. Call me a bad American if you will -- I know at least one guy in town that revels at that opportunity -- but I have all of four days left in which I can prepare for the next 10-12 weeks of announcing high school sports on the cable systems of three local communities. I'm busy. My car has left the garage only once since I got back from the Feehan-CM football game on Saturday night, and that was to pick up a pizza tonight.

But I did watch the meeting on my iPhone and witnessed the death sentence for the Roland Green being delivered. It wouldn't have helped if I had gone. I would have just sounded like a NIMBY objecting to six new housing units going up on a plot of land not much larger than my own, and I would have come across like a curmudgeonly codger shaking his fist at the moon. Unlike others I know, I actually can read a room. Anything I could have said would have fallen upon deaf ears.

I can't imagine Dean Street without the Roland Green School being a part of it. But to be totally honest, I don't really know if any remorse I feel is actually genuine.

You see, I never attended it.

The late, lamented Dominican Academy.

My parents sent me to a Catholic elementary school in Plainville in 1959, the long-since-closed Dominican Academy, which was sort of regarded as "Bishop Feehan Prep" in those days. But I was too much of a hell-raiser and free-thinker for the shellshocked Dominican sisters, and they basically threw me out of the place after I made it through six of eight grades. My parents grudgingly sent me to Mansfield schools (and by that time, the brand-new Robinson Elementary was open), and I survived and thrived and became the solid citizen I am today.

Mansfield was a different town in my elementary days, however. I remember how I would see lines of students my age being led by teachers past our house and up Dean Street as "field trips" to the river that flowed through both Fulton and Kingman ponds, and then maybe stroll to the library near the South Common. Kids were also let out on their own at the end of a school day, and they'd stroll past the house on their way home. Life was a lot safer then. Buses took you out to the sticks, but if you lived within a mile or so of the school, as most of the kids did, the walk was usually pleasant and safe.

But in the less-trusting 2020s, with pre-schoolers in the building, there were no field trips and no carefree walks home. All of the streets in the grid around Roland Green became parking lots for countless SUVs waiting in line to pick up their precious little cherubs around 2 p.m. You could tell inside the house that it was time for pickup, too, because of the incessant and ear-piercing screaming by the children with separation anxiety that would refuse to go gently into those giant Yukons, Tucsons and GLE 450s.

I remember quite well my first day of school in September 1959, when I was 5½ years old. My parents walked me the eighth of a mile from our house to the bus stop at the corner of West Street and Copeland Drive. The yellow Ford bus (No. 3, I recall) stopped, the doors swung open and my folks basically told me that I was on my own and not to be bashful. I sat down, looked out the window most of the way and then got off the bus in Plainville and asked the first white-robed woman with a long black cape that I saw, "Which way to the first grade?" Every day thereafter, I did it all myself.

True story. Pre-school? I didn't need no steenkin' pre-school.

Not only was there way too much traffic near Roland Green in recent times, the soccer moms in their suburban commando vehicles would floor the accelerator pedals once the kids were belted in, and they would try to get from 0-to-60 by the time they reached West Street -- and with no regard whatsoever to anyone else trying to make it to their driveways. And the teachers, with no parking spaces available in the playground behind the school, took to parking their cars in front of my house, often practically blocking that driveway entrance.

I complained to the former schools superintendent, who had graduated from MHS just a few years after me, but she said she couldn't do anything about it. But then once the school year was over, the pre-school closed and the problem was solved. And now, the "final solution" will be a permanent one.

Frankly, I don't think I've ever set foot inside the building. I wasn't a student, nor was I a parent of one, and otherwise there's no reason for an adult to be roaming about an ancient elementary school if sports aren't being played there.

My pitching dreams ended
during my Legion career.

The only use I had for the building, in fact, was when I was in my early teens and I had made the junior varsity baseball team at MHS. I harbored dreams about being a pitcher, but with no brothers or sisters and few children my age on the street, I didn't have anyone to throw the ball with -- especially at higher velocity. But the Roland Green's side walls were solid red brick with no windows, and a foundation of concrete that began right where the middle of the strike zone might be on an opposing batter. I'd mark off a spot roughly 60 feet away (no mound, so I wasn't really helping myself), put down a bucket of balls and strap on my cleats, and I'd start firing full-windup throws at a small rectangle-shaped vent hole in the foundation that I presumed would be a perfect strike.

I'd do that for hours on end, usually on weekends when the school was closed. My accuracy got better, but the velocity never got much past 60 mph from my estimates and occasional throws with a radar gun nearby. The thwack ... thwack ... thwack noise of the ball striking the wall must have been annoying to neighbors, but no one ever complained ... which is amazing, when you think of it.

And on those very rare occasions when I would put the ball right into that rectangular hole in the wall, it would jar loose a metal wire grating inside it and send both it and the ball bouncing to the basement floor of the school. I'd beat a hasty retreat hoping to avoid discovery and accountability, and a few days later I'd return to see that the grating had been replaced. It would be time to start the process anew.

My old pitching target.

I stopped by my old target recently, and noticed that they had reinforced it considerably since the days when I used to throw at it. It might take a 100-mph burner from Aroldis Chapman to make a dent in it, which is a level of velocity I never had. But hitting it would still be a good low strike for a guy my height. I also wonder what they did with the dozen or so baseballs I deposited in that hole nearly a half-century ago.

In some ways, I hope that maybe I can take a stroll inside Roland Green School just once before it becomes a pile of rubble, just to see what's inside. I always wondered, because I never attended a school that wasn't of recent construction. It has been a noble backdrop to significant portions of my life, but it's hardly worth re-purposing. Starbucks would not be interested, I'm sure.

It's all part of the march of progress. Tradition and history walk when money talks. I get it. Besides, the Roland Green has had a long and useful life. I hope I can say the same thing when that march of progress overtakes me -- and to be honest, I suspect the Roland Green doesn't have that much of a head start.

Farewell, old friend.

MARK FARINELLA fully understands that nothing lasts forever ... although he's going to try his damnedest to prove otherwise. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

The King Philip Warriors celebrate their Super Bowl victory over North Attleboro.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering after the soothing effects of the icebags on the knees wore off in the middle of the night:

** I've reached the end of another fall season of calling high school sports on North TV, my seventh as a play-by-play announcer, and it's entirely appropriate that I offer a few thoughts on the topic.

First and foremost, what an impressive accomplishment it was that all four of the football teams we cover at North TV -- North Attleboro, King Philip, Bishop Feehan and Tri-County -- all reached their respective state championship games. For North and KP, it was the MIAA state Division 3 title game. For Bishop Feehan, it was a berth in the D2 title tilt. And for Tri-County, which opted out of the MIAA D6 Tournament despite the prospect of having a No. 8 or 9 seed, it was a third straight trip to the MVADA state vocational bowl title game -- this time moving up to the middle of three enrollment-based divisions.

King Philip, making its fifth straight trip to a Super Bowl but first in Division 3, ended North's D3 reign with a 21-10 victory at Gillette Stadium last Friday. Bishop Feehan, making its first visit to a title game in 13 years, had the unfortunate task the next day of falling to the Catholic Memorial juggernaut, 41-14. And Tri-County, which had split the last two MVADA Small championships with Blue Hills Regional of Canton, won the rubber match decisively, 28-6, at Greater New Bedford Voke last Wednesday. 

I was fortunate to call all but two of KP's games this year -- the North Attleboro crew did both KP-North games, but I was there for both -- and I've been the voice behind the vast majority of their past seven seasons, which has been a memorable ride indeed. Yet only once have I been able to call their actual Super Bowl victory, and that was two years ago when KP hammered Marshfield in the final. Still, I've been on the scene for both of their recent 13-0 seasons, and you can't ask for a better memory than that.

It's been a hell of a team to follow. Both Keigan Canto-Osorio and Tallan King went over 1,000 rushing yards this year. Ryan Greenwood, Zach Gebhard and that rock-solid offensive line did their jobs all season long. Liam McGrath pulled in eight of KP's 23 interceptions -- not too shabby for a pass defense that was totally rebuilt from last year. And the list goes on and on.

Frankie Strachan was a total stud.

Still, I'm sure that every athlete and coach on that KP team feels a lot of empathy for at least one member of their vanquished opposition. In the first quarter of KP's victory over North Attleboro on Friday, the Rocketeers' powerful 250-pound running back, Frankie Strachan, was at the bottom of a pile near the goal line and he couldn't immediately get up. Word from the Boston papers was that Strachan had suffered a broken foot, and he was done for the night.

The burly back had put North on his shoulders over the second half of the season, gaining almost 1,000 yards in the last five games alone as well as carrying the ball well over 30 times a game. I still believe KP would have won the Super Bowl -- it would have been tougher, for sure, but KP was one of the best teams I've seen in a while -- but to be the best, you generally need to believe you beat the other team's best. Nobody was happy to see Strachan limp to the sidelines on Friday night.

Storybook end for T-C's Walker.

Perhaps the most joy I gleaned from this championship season, however, was from Tri-County's march to the win over Blue Hills. Three seasons prior to this one, I announced the first game played by T-C quarterback Declan Walker; he had been called upon in a pinch by new Cougars' coach Andy Gomes to start just in his second game as a freshman, with very little preparation for the job. In that game against Nashoba Valley Tech in Franklin, Walker marched his team confidently to a touchdown in his very first possession.

It's not often that you get to put the bookends together like that, but there I was Wednesday, watching that young man play the last varsity game of his career and throw for 146 yards, going over the 2,000-yard passing plateau for the season, and leading his team to a second straight voke bowl championship.

Both Walker and fellow senior and North Attleboro native Nick O'Brien had magnificent seasons, the latter going well over 1,000 yards in both rushing and receiving as the Cougars finished 11-1. And they did it without being able to play at home. Construction of the new Tri-County RVTHS on the current site has rendered the football field unusable, but Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood (where former Norton High coach and AD Ted Currle is the athletic director) stepped forward and let the Cougars play in the Hawk Bowl all season long. There was definitely a storybook quality to the Cougars' season, and I was happy to see the ending turn out as everyone had dreamed it would.

And that brings me to Bishop Feehan. I had the privilege of announcing their big win over BC High at midseason, and I've always kept an eye upon the terrific career of Owen Mordas, the Norton lad that started at quarterback for his entire four-year career. I, like many others, were hoping for the Sisters of Mercy to provide a miracle on Saturday against a school that seemingly pulls in its athletes from all corners of the state (and then some), and had won three of the last four D2 Super Bowls when everyone on the planet knows that the Knights really should be playing in D1.

A rare moment of joy for Feehan against CM.

Despite a brief glimmer of hope when Mordas spied Andrew Orphanos open in the end zone for a 7-yard score and a 7-7 tie early in the game, it was not to be. CM took control of the game, as it always seems to do, and won 41-14 in what was probably the least competitive game of all eight played at Gillette. Lucky me, that was the one I got to call.

I have a strict policy not to be overly critical of high school kids playing sports. They are not pros and deserve in almost every circumstance to be cut some slack for just about anything -- except maybe the most egregious departures from sportsmanship and fair play. So I will bite my tongue and restrain my typing fingers over what I am about to say.

Maybe it was the slap in the face of surrendering an early touchdown to a team they didn't take all too seriously, but it was obvious for all to see in the stadium and on live TV that the Knights didn't like it. And they started playing like it. Watch the replay again, either the version on patriots.com or our North TV version once it's archived this week, and you will see plenty of instances of taunting and dirty play by the winning team as it reclaimed the momentum and built the blowout. 

It was embarrassing and infuriating. It certainly made the D2 game the worst of them all. And at one point in the telecast, I did go off on an angered soliloquy about the behavior I was seeing -- but I made a point of assigning the blame exactly where it belonged.

Squarely upon the shoulders of the head coach.

You see, I remember the days when CM was just another struggling football school, its program mired deeply in the shadow of its very successful basketball program. CM was the school you called if you needed to fill a hole in your schedule with an easy win, and many of our local schools did just that a few decades ago.

Well, obviously, there was a segment of the CM alumni cabal that wanted to change that. So they lured John DiBiaso away from Everett High, where he had built a D1 powerhouse, and gave him a blank check to build a winner.

DiBiaso did exactly that. He has been at CM for eight years now and has a 77-10 record there, bringing his career record of wins to 381 over 30 head coaching seasons. Obviously, the guy knows what he's doing. 

But I and my fellow observers in the North TV booth at Gillette also observed that he clearly didn't give two shits about the behavior of his team. I could use all sorts of adjectives to describe it, and because of the multicultural makeup of the CM roster, some might accuse me of racism for being even remotely critical. Think what you will, folks, but this is now the fourth Super Bowl I've seen from Catholic Memorial and it's not the first time I've seen that behavior -- although this was clearly the worst example of all. And during the game, I practically screamed that it was time for DiBiaso, as the authority figure in charge, to get control over his team.

I don't think the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers teach that sort of public comportment in the classrooms.

I will also note that I was thoroughly impressed with the play and the demeanor of CM quarterback Kise Flannery, a very talented and successful young man that will be taking his talents to Harvard next year. I watched video of four of his games in preparation for this one, and each time I came away fully in awe of his skills and his leadership. There's the fellow that should have been the poster boy for CM's victory on Saturday, and in my opinion, it's a damned shame that the undisciplined play of some of his teammates tarnished the effort even in the slightest.

Maybe it's time for the MIAA to take a stand. I don't think the state association has the sack to stop CM from looking all over creation for athletes as if it was an independent prep school, but it should simply force to CM to play at the same level as 99 percent of the rest of the Catholic Conference, in Division 1.

And if that sounds like sour grapes that Feehan didn't win, so be it. I don't see Feehan as "another cheating Catholic" as some might claim -- its co-ed enrollment of about 1,100 students is made up quite differently than the all-male behemoths that raise eyebrows in D1. In fact, if not for the MIAA rules that force Feehan to play up a division because it is a faith-based regional school, the Shamrocks should have been doing battle with like-sized schools such as North Attleboro, Mansfield, KP, Marshfield, Barnstable and Hingham in D3.

Sad it is that the last game of the year left that sour taste in my mouth, but I'm still very pleased and proud that the Shamrocks got to the last game, as everyone in the Feehan community and our area in general should be.

** I'm hoping someone might answer a question for me.

Ever since I was a mere tyke, the TV station at the top of the VHF dial (and I know nobody knows what that is any more) was Boston's Channel 2. WGBH-TV, or what we called back in the day, "educational television." Obviously, that station still exists as one of the anchors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an association of television and radio stations of like mission that provide news, information and entertainment that some would call "highbrow" in content. PBS gave us Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theatre and a lot of intelligent programming in-between, including magnificent documentaries such as Ken Burns' recent look at the American Revolution. 

Even if you don't pay attention to its programming, PBS probably rang a bell for you because it's been in the news lately. Our lord and master, King Donald the First, managed to yank all federal funding away from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 

Trump hates any sort of independent voice that would accurately point out that he is rapidly turning the United States into a dictatorship, and his only recourse with PBS was to pull federal support away from it -- which is why the lists of supporting corporations and foundations that you hear before every PBS program has grown longer and longer in recent months.

GBH, fighting the good fight.

Anyway, as I said, WGBH has been one of the founders and driving forces behind the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- or, as they call it these days, just GBH. And that has puzzled me a little because as far as I know, it's still a broadcast station governed by the rules and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission -- another federal entity that has been weaponized by Trump against what he calls "wokeness," although that's a complaint for another day.

What puzzled me was why they have removed the "W" from the call letters -- and, given the changes in broadcasting these days, if you don't know what call letters are or why they exist, in a nutshell, they are the three- or four-letter identifying names given to North American broadcasting stations. In the U.S., most radio and TV stations on the eastern side of the Mississippi River start with W, such as WBZ, WCVB, WJAR and so on. In the west, most start with K, such as KABC, KCBS and KTLA in Los Angeles (although one of the oldest broadcast stations in the country, KDKA, hails from Pittsburgh).

Canada and Mexico have their own similar call-letter system, too. Canada uses CF, CH, CJ and CK and just two more letters as identifiers, holding to the four-letter format as there are far fewer broadcast outlets north of the border. Mexican stations similarly start with XE or XH.

(An aside: I do work in TV these days, but because North TV is a local cable station and not a broadcasting entity sending our signal out to Alpha Centauri via radio waves, we don't have call letters. I think it would be cool if we were WNTV, but those are apparently the call letters for a real TV station which operates out of Greenville, S.C., and carries PBS programming over Channel 29.)

New swag! Be a winner!

Anyway, because I am sometimes inexplicably obsessed with finding answers to questions of dubious importance, I was relieved to find that, for the purpose of legality, WGBH is still WGBH in the eyes of the broadcasting powers-that-be. I looked on their website to check that out. But I could not find out when or why they dropped the W from their corporate branding. It's probably because for as long as I've been around, people just referred to the station in everyday parlance as "'GBH," dropping the W out of convenience or haste.

If someone knows the reason why, please drop me a line at the email address that always appears at the bottom of these missives. If you'd like to include your name and mailing address in the email, the first one that responds correctly (and I will check with GBH to confirm) will receive one of my spiffy new green-and-gold "The Owner's Box ... After Dark" winter hats in return.

** Speaking of the Asshole-in-Chief, it just seems to me that every time I believe we've reached the limit of the embarrassment that can be caused to this country by President Donald von Shitzenpantz, he tops it. 

The latest bad joke: The "FIFA Peace Prize."

The most recent example was the international soccer federation's presentation to him of the "FIFA Peace Prize" by the organization's president, Gianni Infantino -- whose name I confused in an earlier typing with that of the late and great Carmine Infantino, the comic-book artist that brought The Flash to life in the pages of DC Comics when that character was revived and re-envisioned in 1956. Many apologies to THAT Infantino family.

Talk about your all-time suck-ups! FIFA, apparently terrified that Trump's anti-immigration policies will threaten the success of the upcoming World Cup games in the U.S. (seven of which are to be at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro), seized upon the Mango Führer's disappointment at again being rejected for a Nobel Peace Prize by creating one of its own to massage the fragile ego of our Cheeto Benito.

Indeed, they have reason to be fearful about waves of ICE thugs yanking individuals out of the stadium waiting lines and sending them to gulags in the dark of night. There are already rumblings that international ticket sales will suffer (as well as associated travel industries) from the climate of fear Trump and his evil minions created in what used to be the Land of the Free.

But the "FIFA Peace Prize?" REALLY??? From one of the most corrupt organizations in the history of this planet? This is supposed to be something that anyone should take seriously? 

You know, there's a reason why they're called "soccer riots."

Better it should have been called the "FIFA Piss Prize," as that was probably what was running down Donald's leg when he received it. Besides, that's the way Melania would pronounce it anyway.

** I now have three things at the top of my list of things that make me immediately turn off the sound on whatever I'm listening to at the moment:

        1. The "1-877-Kars-for-Kids" jingle,

        2. Any commercial that starts with, "Hi, it's your favorite president, Donald J. Trump ..." and,

        3. Any mention at all of "Lane Kiffin."

** The North TV winter sports schedule came to me this morning, and I'll be a busy boy.

Alex Salachi and I will bring you four King Philip basketball games, two apiece from the boys and girls, and the North-based crew will have two others for those that follow the men and women of Metacomet. Del Malloy and I will also have two Bishop Feehan girls' games for you, for which I've been lobbying for some time now. And I've got quite a few hockey games as well.

Other than those, Alex and I will be bringing the bulk of the Mansfield High home basketball schedule to the world via Mansfield Cable Access, both boys and girls. And we'll even show up for a few games of the Foxboro girls over the course of the season. Not bad for a couple of codgers -- one of whom turns 72 tomorrow.

Hint: It's not me. Not yet, anyway,

See you around the gyms, my friends.

MARK FARINELLA climbed many more rows of bleachers to reach press boxes this season than his aching knees would have preferred. Send along advice about knee replacement surgery to him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

Marcus Vaughn, Del Malloy and I won't be this comfortable Thursday morning at Franklin. 

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while waiting for four new tires to be put on the Panzer before the holiday rush:

** As I mentioned in my last post, I've been a really busy guy of late. But my football season is on the home stretch, as I have finalized at least two of potentially three assignments leading up to the end of the football season and the start of basketball and hockey.

First, of course, Del Malloy and Marcus Vaughn will be at my side in the top of the bleachers at Franklin High's Pisini Stadium for the annual Thanksgiving rivalry game between the host Panthers and the team I've followed non-stop for the past seven seasons, the King Philip Warriors.

Following that, I'm awaiting word as to whether I'll be announcing the MVADA Medium Division title game between Tri-County and Blue Hills -- the third time in a row that those teams will meet in a vocational bowl title game. The date, time and site for that game has yet to be set.

And finally, I'll be the local voice for North TV's delayed telecast of the MIAA Division 2 Super Bowl between Catholic Memorial and Bishop Feehan on Saturday (3:30 p.m.) at Gillette Stadium. We can't do the game live because of the MIAA's contractual obligations to Kraft Sports and Entertainment Productions. but I promise that I'll know more about the Shamrocks than whomever they find to announce the game. 

The job of calling the Division 3 title game on Friday night between King Philip and North Attleboro will go to North TV's North-based crew of Jared Ware, Ethan Hamilton and Anthony Pirri, and I know they'll do a good job. That, too, will have to be shown on a delayed basis. I'll certainly be watching that on live TV and the later re-broadcast, and I hope I don't spend too much time shouting at my TV screen over what mistakes the Kraft-hired announcers make.

In case you're wondering why I mention this, it's because I do admit to some pique over not being able to continue my job of being the TV "voice" of the Warriors in the postseason. And that's not North TV's fault.

All year long, I and my crew have followed KP every step of the way. The only game we didn't do was when the North crew drew the assignment of the regular-season game between the teams at North Attleboro's Beaupre Field, which is our standard operating protocol.

Otherwise, we were on the KP beat either at Macktaz Field, or at the visiting venues like Natick, Taunton and Foxboro. And once the playoffs started, we were in our seats inside the KP press box, often sharing our call with the other cable systems from the KP towns.

This has been my "home" for the last seven years.

But once we reach the semifinal round, the MIAA takes over. The state association has sold broadcast rights to the National Federation of High Schools Network, and they have the exclusive rights. In past years, North TV got the rights to provide that coverage to the NFHS Network, and originally, I was supposed to call two games this past Saturday -- the Division 5 semifinal between Foxboro and Archbishop Williams and the Malden Catholic vs. King Philip D3 semifinal, both at Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School. I was stoked for the assignment for exactly one day, until I learned that because of a prior contractual agreement, another production company would be handling both games.

C'est la vie, as they say. I watched about half of the Foxboro game, went to the KP game (and sat in the stands) and then watched the NFHS replay later to check my in-game chart. The other outfit did a good job, but it still bothers me that after covering KP football non-stop for the past seven years, the MIAA and the NFHS Network have the right to take coverage away from the companies that follow a team all year long and hand it off to someone else because they paid the rights fees for it.

It's like the commercial for the investment company in which two parents are sitting in a packed high school auditorium watching graduation, and when their kids get their diplomas, their names are announced as the names of local businesses. "Oh, we sold the rights to our kids' names, like stadiums do," they claim, because it's so expensive to raise kids these days.

(By the way, the guy that stands up after the son's name (now the same as that fellow's tanning salon) is announced, and says, "If you need a tan, I'm your man," should get an Emmy or something. It's the most believable moment in the entire commercial.)

Stadium naming rights can be sold. I get it. But the rights to televise high school sports? For heaven's sake, this isn't the NFL. The MIAA certainly would not dare selling the rights for print media to cover their tournament games exclusively to the highest bidder ... or did I just give them an idea? God, I hope not.

** I've also been going to a few other games I haven't had to announce, including Tri-County's two playoff games in the state vocational bowl. The Cougars have been a fun team to watch this year -- just one loss on their schedule heading into a rematch with Blue Hills (their third straight championship game meeting). I did one of their games, against South Shore Voke, and the Cougars ran off 22 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to win that one. QB Declan Walker and RB/WR Nick O'Brien have had record-shattering seasons for coach Andy Gomes, who used to quarterback the Norton Lancers many years ago. 

Declan Walker has had a terrific
season for Tri-County's Cougars.

But during their first-round game against Worcester Tech at Xaverian Brothers High, I saw something I had never seen before in well over 50 years of high school sports coverage. The clock operator, a member of the officiating crew, just shut off the clock and left in the second quarter of play because it was too loud for him inside the press box.

This gentleman was an older fellow (but I doubt he was older than I am), and the press box at the X is a one-room structure that must be shared with media and public-address announcers. It can get a little loud there, and as Xaverian has served as Tri-County's home site this year during construction of the new T-C, the job of announcing has gone to a Tri-County parent.

He's a nice guy, and a little loud and excitable, that's true -- but as Tri-County has been displaced from its home and is having a great football season despite the inconvenience, the idea has been to use any means possible to stoke excitement among the Cougar faithful. In that contained space of the press box, the announcer's enthusiasm was magnified, but for those of us with jobs to do -- me to chart the game and a Milford-based TV crew to broadcast it -- the rule of thumb was not to let it distract us from those jobs. Easily enough done.

The clock operator was clearly bothered by it all, however, and he let his displeasure be known several times in increasingly aggressively tones. After a while, he took to berating the announcer and threatening to leave -- which he finally did, shutting off the power to the scoreboard and charging out the door with a few choice profanities left behind for good measure, leaving everyone on the field to wander about and wonder what exactly in the Sam Hill was going on.

This is my job. And that's what I focus upon.

After maybe about an investigatory pause of 15-20 minutes, someone was found to run the clock and play resumed. 

During that first quarter, I overheard several efforts by the clock operator to contact the officials on the field through a radio hookup, looking for someone to replace him, to no avail. If there truly was a problem, that would have been the proper course of action to follow -- contact the officials, they contact the site director (in this case, T-C AD Sara Martin), and she addresses the problem. But the clock guy had no business taking matters into his own hands as he did -- and then to do so as unprofessionally as possible. 

I am reminded of the mantra Bill Belichick employed throughout his tenure as Patriots' coach -- "Do your job." Everyone else in that press box did their job except one guy -- and since nobody was deliberately preventing him from performing his tasks, well, if he can't shut out the distractions and perform them, then maybe it's time to step aside and shake his fist at the moon on his own time.

** The next game I attended in Tri-County's tournament run was at Stoughton High's new football field. It was my first visit there since it was finished, and I have to say, they did an absolutely terrific job of it. It's a beautiful venue.

And by the way, if there are any athletic directors or school building committees looking for templates from which to build a new press box, I have three suggestions -- Stoughton High, North Attleboro's Beaupre Field and the Sam Berns Community Field at Foxboro High. All three have partitioned rooms for media, game officials and coaches, and excellent views of their fields. And given that the future of high school sports media coverage appears to be in streaming video, that's something that needs to be considered in future construction.

** There will be a lot of criticism of the MIAA in the days to come over its choices of tournament venues that don't have adequate facilities for media, and I must sadly add my voice to that because one of the venues most worthy of criticism is my alma mater, Mansfield High.

We're trying to fix things, folks. Really!

As a Mansfield taxpayer that voted for the funding to undertake the improvements, I'm a big fan of the upgrades of Alumni Field over the past year or so. But unfortunately, Mansfield High remains a black hole when it comes to a wireless Internet signal or a wired Internet connection inside the press box. The result for the Feehan vs. Bridgewater-Raynham football semifinal was an annoyingly choppy broadcast (by our North TV crew, unfortunately) that drew a lot of online criticism from those that felt they wasted their money in purchasing it.

Full disclosure here -- I work for Mansfield Cable Access a lot in the wintertime, doing boys' and girls' basketball games. And the poor-quality Internet signal inside the Albertini Gym was addressed with the addition of wired connections, but apparently, those are proprietary to Mansfield Cable Access. Same with the wired connection inside the football press box. I was a beneficiary of that as well this fall when I announced a couple of boys' soccer games from there, but it was not available for the NFHS crew last Friday, and the weak cellular signal in the general area of Mansfield High was insufficient.

Mansfield has been a very willing and generous host to postseason games, and that is always much appreciated by everyone involved. But the MIAA and NFHS need to establish standards for Internet accessibility if they are going to continue to charge the public for telecasts from there and any other site chosen to host a postseason game. Again, with media coverage of high school sports shifting more toward video and away from print, it's time to consider that a different type of media has a different set of needs.

** Speaking of basketball telecasts, my first one of the season is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. from Mansfield High as the Hornet girls take on Medway in their season-opening contest. There are high hopes for the Hornet girls this year, and Alex Salachi and I will man our familiar positions next to that terrific wired Internet connection to bring you all the coverage live at mansfieldcableaccess.com.

** With Bishop Feehan having made it to the D2 Super Bowl against Catholic Memorial, a lot of commenters on social media are now lumping Feehan in with the larger Catholic schools as an example of how private schools shamelessly recruit their athletes from all over the state in order to dominate MIAA competition.

This is unfortunate and false in Feehan's case.

Feehan is a victim of its own success, in a way -- and not necessarily on the athletic fields. It is almost literally the "last man standing" in southeastern Massachusetts in terms of Catholic education. It is by far the largest of any of the Catholics south of Route 128, with an co-educational enrollment of about 1,100 students (a few more girls than boys). The number of boys in the school is far less than for the all-male juggernauts of the Catholic Conference such as CM, St. John's Prep, and Xaverian, but Feehan automatically gets the divisional bump-up for being a Catholic school -- and is more akin to the schools competing in Division 3.

At the beginning of the season, here's how the breakdown of Feehan's football athletes from their home communities shaped up: North Attleboro 17, Norton 10, Attleboro 6, Easton 6, Rehoboth 5, Cumberland, R.I., 3, Foxboro 3, Mansfield 2, Plainville 2, and one apiece from Lincoln, R.I., North Providence, R.I., East Providence, R.I.; Rumford, R.I., Raynham, Canton, Lakeville, Norfolk, Medfield, Walpole, Seekonk and Wrentham. Using the circulation area of The Sun Chronicle as the boundaries of what I call "local," that means that Feehan attracted 48 of its football players from a specific and limited region and 18 from outside it -- but not very far.

By the way, 24 of those athletes came from local towns whose own high schools are playing in next week's MIAA Super Bowls. North Attleboro, in particular, seems to be doing all right despite losing 17 potential players to Feehan, given that the Rocketeers will be defending their Division 3 title on Friday night against King Philip.

Feehan still isn't a "top-tier" Catholic.

Feehan has definitely bucked a trend where Catholic education is concerned in this part of the commonwealth. Coyle-Cassidy, Bishop Connolly and Sacred Heart of Kingston have all closed in recent years. Enrollments are down at Bishop Stang, Cardinal Spellman and Archbishop Williams, which is one reason why Feehan is leaving the Catholic Central League and undertaking life as an independent in the effort to find more equitable competition for all of its athletes, male and female.

Some people like to use a broad brush and paint Feehan in the same light as its much-larger Catholic brethren because of things that happened almost 30 years ago. That's a shame, because I don't see what they're seeing. I see a vibrant academic and athletic community that offers its students a faith-based environment, which some folks see as preferable to public education. But I don't see dominance or smugness -- which is why, after so many years, I keep beating the drum of how Feehan belongs in the Hockomock League. Feehan's mission is far more aligned with the majority of those 12 schools than it is with the single-sex Catholics that draw the ire of those that complain the most.

One final disclaimer: While I did not attend Feehan, I probably started on a track to do so in 1959 when I entered the long-since-closed Dominican Academy in Plainville. But the nuns there beat the faith right out of my soul, to the point where my parents had to put me in the Mansfield school system starting in seventh grade. I survived and thrived there, and I know Catholic education today shares nothing in common with my first six years. I've had nothing but a great relationship with Feehan throughout my entire adulthood, and that's why I hate it when people cast undeserved aspersions upon it.

** Finally, a wish to all of you to enjoy a happy Thanksgiving. By my count, this will be the 61st Turkey Day in which I have been in attendance at a holiday football game (either covering or just watching), so the day probably has a different significance to me than it has for you.

But yes, I have something to be thankful for this year. A dear friend recently had the third major surgery of her lifetime, but the good folks at Brigham and Women's did their jobs and she is well on the way back to good health. Thanks to the professionals who used science and technology to heal her.

See you on the basketball courts!

MARK FARINELLA still has the scars on his knuckles from where Sister Mary Rita used to swing away at them with a brass-tipped ruler, her swing as powerful as Ted Williams in his prime. You can send notes of sympathy or understanding to him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.

Prejudice and persecution have no place in my life.

One of my earliest multimedia ventures was a series of videos created for my newspaper.

It's been a while between posts for me because I've been a busy man. All you need to do to confirm that is to go to the North Attleborough Community Television website (northtv.net), click on the Community Channel link and scroll down to North TV Sports. Open the "see episodes" link and you'll find that on 10 of the first 15 selections, I'm the fellow that provided the play-by-play voice -- and there are a lot more following those as well.

It's a job I love -- sometimes, even more than the half-century I spent as a print journalist. It has allowed me to utilize a different skill I always assumed I had, and there are no deadlines other than to get the telecast started on time. Once it's done, all I need to do is pack up the electronics and head home -- no three-hour writing sessions afterward that dangerously elevate the heart rate.

And, of course, it keeps me close to something I dearly love, high school sports. I covered my first game as a "professional" journalist on Saturday, Sept. 27, 1969 -- football, North Attleboro 22, Mansfield 6 at Memorial Park, as I recall -- for the dearly departed Mansfield News, the weekly newspaper of my hometown. If this announcing gig is indeed my final act in a career that brought me to every NFL stadium in the nation, then it will be a great way to bow out and I intend to give it my best effort until that day comes.

I've been doing this for a long time.

You've probably also read in my ramblings that the one thing I believe I did in my career that may have actually been helpful to society rather than just a source of moderate entertainment in a localized audience was a commitment I made to treat female athletes as equals when it came to my respect for their accomplishments and my efforts to publicize them. It wasn't always an easy or popular thing to do; many male readers responded angrily when The Sun Chronicle started equalizing the coverage of boys' and girls' sports in the late 1970s, just a few years after Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 dictated that all educational institutions that received federal funding of any sort had to take steps to equalize opportunities for women in every facet of their operations, particularly in athletics. 

Title IX didn't force newsgathering entities to equalize coverage. That was a decision to be made out of what was right, and what sold papers. As it turned out, both worked for us. Offering new coverage to 50 percent of the population that had previously been underserved by the local media, if not entirely ignored, eventually helped the bottom line. Today, there isn't a media outlet that would deliberately ignore women's sports. And those critics that called me every name in the book back in the 1970s? They all had daughters and were later praising us for covering their games.

But after all these years, I still have my critics. And in this current national climate of intolerance, prejudice and exclusion, they are relentless in their ignorance. 

Most of that stems from the fact that in my profiles on social media, I clearly state how I feel about another issue of equality that has gained traction among the zealots of the radical right-wing of the national Republican Party.

It's usually just four words: "I support trans rights."

Yes, I support the right of any individual to enjoy what the Constitution and its many amendments have promised them as Americans -- equality. I support their desire to survive and thrive as human beings, even if it is in in a society that now paints them with the same brush as Adolf Hitler used against those of the Jewish faith in his rise to despotic power in 1930s Germany. In the circles of the "Make America Great Again" movement, transgender individuals have become the new enemy, lurking with evil intent into the girls' locker rooms and bathrooms in every corner of America, looking to harass or displace defenseless cisgender females.

The issue has been blown far beyond any level of believability by the MAGA movement and its diabolical leaders. Donald Trump and his associates turned the "no men in women's sports" mantra into a rallying cry for their supporters -- many of whom have never known nor will ever know a transgender individual, but are accepting the messaging that they should fear them and persecute them because Trump says they should.

Let's not forget that in recent testimony before Congress, NCAA president Charlie Baker (the former governor of our commonwealth) said that he knew of no more than 10 transgender athletes among the roughly 510,000 young men and women competing in NCAA-sponsored athletics. That comes out to 0.002 of one percent, in case you're wondering.

It's even more difficult to pin down current figures for how many transgender athletes there are high school sports in the United States. It's estimated that maybe 1 percent of all high school children in the U.S. identify as transgender, and of those, an even smaller percentage compete in athletics. And it's far more difficult for any of them to do so, as the hateful Republican rhetoric has resulted in bans upon transgender participation in 29 states. 

But if you've been around as long as I have, and have seen as many young athletes as I did at the schools I covered, those figures are likely to come to life for you eventually.

(Disclaimer: I am not going to use names for any of the individuals to whom I may be referring in the following paragraphs. Some have become well-known, others remain lurking in the darkness, but it is not my intention to add to the grief of those who were aggrieved, or to somehow legitimize the reprehensible actions of those that attacked them.)

In my career, I have known plenty of athletes that would not fit the MAGA template of "normal." I have known gay athletes and transgender athletes. I have never been judgmental about any of them, because my only concern was about what they did between the white lines. The fields and courts were my domain, but I basically had no need for any knowledge of what they did in their private lives -- unless it was their choice to share that information with me, as a few did over those many decades. Any information they shared was kept private, and will continue be none of anyone else's business.

I am approaching another basketball season, which normally is the happiest time of year for me. Basketball is my favorite sport to call -- easiest, too, in that there are only 10 players on the court at any time and I don't need binoculars to see them. And I have a wonderful history with the sport. My high school sweetheart was a basketball player that had to endure the confusion and upheaval of switching from the six-girl game of olde to the modern rules. She died in 1986 of breast cancer, but she remains my inspiration for recognizing the equal stature of female athletes. My closest friends are also former basketball players. Maybe I would have been, too, if only I could have dribbled with my left hand and released a shot without displaying the mechanics of a marionette.

But last year was probably the least enjoyable of all the seasons in which I have covered basketball, either as a writer or an announcer. 

I loved announcing the games, and I did at least one game or more for six local boys' or girls' teams last year -- and a total of around 30, I believe. But there was an undercurrent that became intolerable.

There was one transgender athlete among the players on those teams. She was a four-year member of her team, afforded an opportunity to compete just as any young American woman has under the laws of the land. Personally, I did not become aware of her uniqueness until two years into her high school career, and probably never would have known if not for attempts by a notorious muck-raking blogger to out her.

To this day, I have no reason to view her as anything other than a talented and personable young woman. The details of her transition are of no interest nor any concern to me. She has gone on to college and I sincerely hope that her life is fulfilling and joyous.

In the wake of that blogger's initial attempt at an outing -- which was pulled off the Internet mere hours after its initial appearance -- the whisper campaign began in earnest. Details of the initial revelation were leaked to anti-trans websites which specialize in sensationalizing the participation of transgender athletes and turning them into pariahs. Schedules of games and scrimmages appeared on those websites and seized upon by those that wanted to stage protests and continue the demonization of a young girl that just wanted to be part of a team with other young women with whom she had grown up.

The demonization also extended to her coaches and her school, and even those in the media that objectively wrote about her or described her accomplishments on electronic media. 

As a former journalist of some ability, I was able to call upon those skills to track down some of those that aided in the demonization -- including parents of athletes from other local schools who made it too easy because they didn't even bother to hide their identities. Much as I wanted to act upon this by revealing those activities to school administrators where applicable, I did not. I have always had a strict "prime directive," if you will -- to not extend blame to young athletes for the sins of their parents. Kids have always gotten a break from me, even though I know that their future behavior, positive or otherwise, may be attributable to the environments in which they were raised. 

Sadly, these individuals achieved their goal. They eventually shamed this young athlete off her team despite the best efforts of her coach and her friends to protect her. There was a protest staged off school property at one site where her team scrimmaged. Another school threatened not to play her team, but backed off. And the environment in the crowds at neutral-site tournaments became toxic, resulting in the eventual decision by her to end her high school basketball career prematurely.

I fully believe that as recently as a decade ago, this young woman could have happily played her entire career with nary an eyebrow raised. Others had, in fact. But under the exclusionary policies of both Trump administrations, whispered declarations of hatred and bigotry have found their way into public policy. 

Trump and his minions needed a figurehead for its bigoted MAGA base to embrace, and they quickly found one.

Gaines: MAGA's face of intolerance.

Ever since a swimmer at the University of Kentucky named Riley Gaines turned her personal disappointment over a tie for fifth place with a transgender athlete in her event at the NCAA championships into a national crusade against all transgender athletes, the political climate has shifted disturbingly toward intolerance and persecution.

I've written about Ms. Gaines before in this space, and I need not waste further effort doing so. Perform a Google search and you'll learn all you need to know about how she turned her personal prejudices into a lucrative career of legitimizing her intolerance. She has become the darling of the MAGA movement's quest to make transgender individuals into villains.

While you're at it, check out the most recent effort by journalist/podcaster Pablo Torre to expose the myth of Riley Gaines. You can find the episode in which he and a researcher from Mother Jones magazine look deeply into Gaines' background following her infamous race against Lia Thomas, and present observations by her former U of K teammates, at this link: https://youtu.be/iKUl8lkuGOc?si=sGErnRpqSq2GHxEG

Everyone in America is entitled to an opinion, no matter how ridiculously wrong it might be. I hear the MAGA contention every day about how there is an army of young men lined up and waiting to identify themselves as women and take over women's sports. Yet I can tell you without hesitation that I have seen no evidence whatsoever to back up that ludicrous contention. And if I haven't seen it in my little corner of the world, it's likely that a lot of other observers of sports at all levels haven't seen it, either. 

There aren't any secret clinics in our high schools where young boys walk in and become young girls against their will, as our increasingly-addled president has contended in his stump speeches. There is no "transgender for everybody" policy. What there has been, although it is being eroded by increasingly restrictive and reactionary laws, was the right of an individual to choose the lifestyle or physical existence that most accurately reflects how that individual sees himself or herself.

I have never been in the position of being a parent whose child was either born with physical reasons that would require a choice of gender, or that was so conflicted in his or her sexual identity in a manner that could be resolved only through gender reassignment. Nor, I believe, are most of those that are complaining the loudest about what they perceive to be a widespread conspiracy by men to take over women's sports and invade so-called safe spaces for women. Yet as opposed to them, I have always tried to imagine myself walking in the shoes of those that face that daunting dilemma before forming an opinion.

And the answer is always the same. I would want what's most likely to bring happiness and personal equilibrium to my child. 

That's a decision that can be made only by those facing those choices -- and not by bigoted and judgmental know-it-alls that seem to take their cue from the ill-informed rants of a president that has already been found to be a sex offender in a court of law, and had a long association with a pedophile and human trafficker and may yet be proven to have partaken in such pursuits himself.

Even Nixon knew what was right.

Let's also make note that 100 years ago, women interested in athletics were shunned or regarded as abnormal. Fast-forward to the 1950s, and young women were still being advised not to compete in contact sports because of feared damage to their reproductive organs. And it wasn't until 1972, when a conservative Republican president signed one of the most liberal pieces of bipartisan legislation that ordered equality for female athletes in all manners -- gym access, uniforms, equipment, quality of coaching, you name it. That was 53 years ago and some knuckle-dragging males still complain about it, but eliminating gender discrimination was the right thing to do, and even Richard Nixon knew it. 

These days, the anti-trans element are using Title IX incorrectly and dishonestly as a defense of their desire to ban transgender individuals from participation. In fact, Title IX eliminated discrimination based upon gender. Whether you're male or female, you're supposed to get equal opportunity -- regardless of how you arrived at your identity.

One of my lingering critics is an individual that I would avoid entirely, but cannot for reasons that will not be revealed here. This individual seems to believe he has a moral directive to expose my support of women's athletics as false because I also support the rights of transgender individuals, and in a recent back-and-forth of social-media comments that were exchanged on that topic, here are the "highlights" of one that was directed to me:

The individual suggested that I had spent too many years pontificating from my soap box and always getting the last word in, and then suggested that I probably had not noticed that a majority (read millions) oppose males on women's teams and in their private spaces. The critic then suggested that perhaps if I spent decades living with a woman and raising two daughters who played sports, one of them at a high level, my world view might be different.

Finally, this individual suggested that I should stop being such a pompous ass. It's not the first time I've heard that suggestion, and it surely won't be the last. 

My only response now and forever is thus: 

First, my life-long support and advocacy for equality for women in athletics is on the record and unimpeachable. 

Second, I believe in the rights of all Americans to enjoy the benefits of equality, regardless of race, religion, national origin or sexual identity, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, its many amendments, and corresponding state constitutions and existing state and federal human-rights legislation. 

And finally, my personal life is none of this individual's business nor anyone else's, unless I choose to share it -- either personally to those that have earned my trust, or as I have publicly on a few occasions over a half-century-plus as a professional writer. I can assure you that my life is traditional, often quite boring, and forged by 72 years of life experience -- and while I may not have experienced some things that others have in their lifetimes, I have always been open to understanding as much of what life has to offer -- whether I might be destined to experience it or not.

In other words, I'm not a closed-minded bigot. And I don't waste my life sending letters to school administrators demanding to know how they are going to persecute a transgender athlete and the coach that treated her as a human being.

The sun has risen and set many times since the end of last basketball season, and it will continue to do so. The universe goes about its business every day, blissfully unconcerned with the petty squabbles of human beings, and there are times when I believe I should learn from its indifference and try my best to emulate it. But as I get older, I find it much more difficult to suffer fools -- particularly those that have attacked my friends.

I hope that, long before the basketballs come off the shelves, I will put all this behind me and feel refreshed and enthusiastic for the upcoming season. I dearly love the sport and I work with good people that share the same level of commitment. I'll call the games as enthusiastically and accurately as I can -- and I promise you, I won't give a single second of thought to what any of the young athletes have under their shorts or how they live their private lives.

We'd be a better society if more people took the same approach.

MARK FARINELLA has covered high school basketball and other sports in southeastern Massachusetts for 57 years. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.