Good morning!
John Chaney’s death last week rekindled memories of the night he threatened to put UMass coach John Calipari six feet under.
It happened 27 years ago next Saturday, after UMass beat Temple 56-55 on a short jumper by Mike Williams with three seconds left. It was Calipari’s fourth win in five games against Temple, after Chaney’s teams had beaten Calipari’s Minutemen nine straight.
It wasn’t some run-of-the-mill A-10 game in the middle of winter. No indeed, it was played before a packed house in the spanking new Mullins Center and it moved the Minutemen (19-4) up to 10th in the AP poll and dropped the Owls (17-4) to 13th.
Both men grew up in Pennsylvania, both recruited out of inner city neighborhoods, and both stressed defense but that’s where the similarities ended. Calipari was and still is a charmer; Chaney was gruff and strictly X’s and O’s. In his book “Going Bigtime: The Spectacular Rise of UMass Basketball,” Marty Dobrow wrote that while Calipari always seemed poised for a GQ shoot, “Chaney was a rumpled blanket before the game even tipped off.”
Every coach works the refs, but Calipari made it an art form. A few weeks earlier, his squawking had resulted in three dubious second-half calls against George Washington that helped UMass beat the Colonials by the same 56-55 score they beat Temple.
The Valentine Eve fireworks began after the game, when according to two accounts Calipari waited for the officials in a hallway near the refs room. When Gerry Donhehy, Joe Mingle and Larry Lembo approached he told them, “You’ll never work this gym again.”
“Calipari said something to one of the refs and I think someone relayed that to John Chaney,” Derek Kellogg told ESPN’s 30-for-30. “The doors bust open and in comes Coach Chaney.”
The New York Times reported that Chaney began talking the moment he entered the press room. “You’ve got a good ballclub. But what you did with the officials out there is wrong, and I don’t want to be a party to that. You understand?”
“You weren’t out there, Coach,” said Calipari. “You don’t have any idea.”
Chaney said he did understand. “You got a game given to you by officials right here with G.W. on three bad calls, OK?”
Chaney’s “shrapnel voice croaking” as Dobrow described it, got closer and louder. “Then you send your kids out there pushing and shoving. You had the best officiating you could ever get here… Three class guys and you single them out.”
It took four people — a UMass player, two Temple players and an event crew staffer — to keep Chaney from reaching Calipari. “When I see you, I’ll kick your a** Kick your a**!” Chaney yelled. “I’ll kill you!”
UMass’ Daily Collegian reported that after the ruckus Calipari returned to the UMass locker room. “Chaney went after me,” he told his assistant Bruiser Flint.
“I busted out laughing,” Flint told the Collegian, “but then I realized he’s dead serious.”
Flint had seen Chaney attack GW coach Gerry Gimelstob in 1984. Two years earlier, Chaney had tried to choke Stanford coach Tom Davis, and he’d already had a shoving incident with Calipari at the Curry Hicks Cage.
“Cal, this isn’t the first time he’s gone after you,” said Flint.
“Not like this though,” said Calipari.
The New York Times headline the following day was, “Chaney Lambastes UMass’s Calipari.”
The Minutemen beat Temple twice more that season but lost to Maryland in the second round of the NCAA tourney. Temple lost to Indiana, also in the second round. UMass finished eighth in the final AP poll and Temple placed 12th.
Chaney’s entire Div. 1 career was at Temple, after a successful stint at Div. 2 Cheyney State. His teams won 506 games and lost 206. They made 17 NCAA appearances but never got past the Elite Eight. Last week, Sirius-XM’s Dan Grasso interviewed former Owls play-by-play voice Harry Donahue. When the Amherst fracas came up, Donahue said Chaney had only one regret: “He told me, ‘I just shoulda waited till everyone left and beat the crap out of him.’”
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Joe Martino’s “On the Run: Friendships and Finish Lines” got a plug from an unlikely source. “I don’t know anything about running, but I do know Joe,” wrote Penn Jillette. “We’re both from Greenfield and he invited me to read his book. The story isn’t in the writing, it’s in the passion. I love that runners are the same as magicians, with the same kind of cliques and friendships. I loved reading about Jim Allen, who taught me to swim at the Y, and Joe’s description of running up to the pumping station. But man, those 15-mile runs at night in the winter slush aren’t meant for me.”
Martino’s book is on sale online and at the World Eye & Magical Child Bookstore in Greenfield.
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SUPER BOWL: Chris Russo asked Buccaneers beat reporter Ira Kaufman if the Tampa nightlife was “too slow” for renowned party animal Rob Gronkowski. “You can get in trouble in Tampa,” replied Kaufman. “You want trouble, you can get into it. They know about Tampa in Germany. You say Tampa in Germany, and the first thing they say is, ‘Strip club.’”
“You can’t print enough Brady T-shirts down here,” Kaufman added. “I think the Bucs are going to own the trenches, but Mahomes is the ‘X’ factor.”
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After several attempts at a comeback, Dustin Pedroia retired this week. His knee never recovered from Manny Machado’s takeout slide in 2017. He was named the Rookie of the Year and the MVP in back-to-back seasons but never reached 1,000 RBIs or 1,000 runs. He had fewer than 2,000 base hits and his career batting average was barely below .300 (.299287 to be precise).
Pedroia loved the game. He hustled. He slid and dove and earned the moniker Muddy Chicken, which he preferred over Laser Show. “If it was up to me,” said MLB analyst C.J. Nitkowski, “baseball would be filled with Dustin Pedroia’s.”
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Reader Mandy Szkotak doesn’t agree with the late George Frazier’s opinion that Nantucket is classier than Martha’s Vineyard. “I push back on that! The Vineyard has attracted far more artists, authors and leaders in all fields than boring little Nantucket.”
Shutesbury’s Dave Perlmutter probably agrees. In the early ’80s he was hitchhiking with a friend on the Vineyard. “I was in the back seat with another friend. He had already picked up another hitchhiker, a woman, who was in the front passenger seat. Eventually she looked over and asked him, “So, are you…um… James Taylor?’”
“After a brief pause he said he was. We’d all been talking and joking, and I suddenly lost the ability to form full sentences.”
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SQUIBBERS: The New York Rangers parted ways with high scoring defenseman Tony DeAngelo, whose off-ice issues were such that he wasn’t worth the trouble. As NHL insider Mike Rupp put it: “You gotta ask, Is the juice worth the squeeze?” … UMass netminder Filip Lindberg is closing in on enough minutes to qualify for the national leaderboard. At this writing his 1.45 goals against average and .943 save percentage were third and seventh best, respectively. … Minnesota State’s Dryden McKay leads both aforementioned categories. Yes, his hockey-loving dad named him after Hall of Famer Ken Dryden. … The N.Y. Post’s Mike Vaccara asks: “How long do you think Billy Martin would’ve lasted on Twitter?” … It was sad to read of the passing of local historian Peter Miller. He was energetic, friendly and engaging, and in 1999 co-authored “Greenfield: Images of America” about life here during the 20th Century. … Last month was the 76th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last attempt to stop the Allied invasion. George Patton’s Third Army marched 100 miles north to relieve beleaguered troops at Bastogne. Patton’s code word to counterattack: “Play ball.” … Paul Foytak died last week. Foytak broke in with Detroit in 1953 and was 81-81 in 10 years with the Tigers. “Players like him are what I loved about the game,” said Tigers fan Crosby Hunt. “Not a superstar but regular folk, toiling and sweating and looking mighty human.” … Sunday is the day that in the words of George Orwell, “Gambling, beer and football filled their minds.” Here’s my prediction. Linebacker Devin White, No. 45, will be named the Super Bowl MVP and Tampa Bay will beat the Chiefs, 33-23. You heard it here first.
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet95@yahoo.com