The Good in the Room: Sunday musings…9/20/2026
Per WSJ, in order to compete against departed coach Lane Kiffin Mississippi State upped their player payroll from $25MM to $43MM after Kiffin departed for LSU. Yup, the WSJ called it a payroll. The starting QB’s salary to play college football is $3MM. At least Ole Miss got its money’s worth; they clinched the victory with a drive-killing interception in the end zone with less than a minute on the clock.
In other news, Williams College Defeated Bowdoin 17-7 in Williamstown. Visiting Bowdoin was treated to hot dogs and hamburgers before boarding a buss for the 5 hour drive home. No word on who picked up the tab.
Leading 10-0 with less than 7 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter the starting QB for Williams sprinted down the right sideline for a first down and a chance to seal the victory. As he was knocked out of bounds he landed awkwardly and sustained a season (and perhaps career) ending knee injury. By my unofficial count this was perhaps his 12th or 13th carry of the day. I happened upon him and his family after the game as they bundled him into a truck for the drive to the team doctor’s office.
Obviously in pain, he was nonetheless smiling from ear to ear.
You see, the boys who took the field on Saturday for this NESCAC conference opener play football for the joy of the game. It’s an extremely rare occurrence for anyone who attends one of these schools to enter the transfer portal and move up the ladder of leagues, let alone strap up and play in the NFL. There are no NIL contracts, and the annual budget for football in the NESCAC is less than an upper mid-level FBS quarterback’s salary. They play for the game. They play for their schools. They play for each other.
Football injuries, especially head injuries have been in the headlines in both the legacy media and across the interwebs. Apparently a couple of helmet manufacturers have launched so-called “safer” helmets designed to mitigate the risk of brain injuries caused by direct contact to the head. This has brought out a chorus of critics who exclaim that no child should be allowed to play football at all, helmet advances be damned. Voices from every corner declare that they will never allow a son to play the sport, implying that those parents who do are a lesser version of the parent species.
I’m calling BS.
Head injuries are a scourge in almost all sports played by both boys AND girls. Know what sport has the highest number and percent of participants who have a meaningful injury? Hint: it’s not football. It’s not even a helmet sport. For boys it’s baseball and for girls it’s soccer. For sure there is a higher incidence of head injuries in all of the so-called “helmet sports”. Football, lacrosse, and hockey all require helmets to protect the boys and girls who play. “Head-hunting” is a plague in all of those sports, and not just when played by boys. Take in a girls’ hockey game some time. It’s a rough game.
And anyone who thinks soccer is a non-contact sport needs their own head examined. I mean, come on, they hit the flipping ball with their heads ON PURPOSE! At least soccer balls are waterproof now. Imagine what heading a waterlogged ball must have felt like back in the day.
So why play? Why, especially, play football? Well, at least one answer was to be found in Williamstown, MA this weekend. Some 50 or so men who played sports at Williams in the 70’s and 80’s–mostly football, lacrosse, hockey, and pre-waterproof ball soccer players by the way– convened in Williamstown to celebrate a friend’s victory over cancer and to affirm in person what we’ve been telling each other by email for nearly 20 years: the time we spent together on the playing fields and the people we played with were hugely responsible for the men we all grew up to be.
I know I’ve told you about this group once or twice. 185 men, almost all of whom graduated from Williams College between 1975 and 1983. The unofficial nickname count is 180. Most of these guys are so associated with their nicknames, at least in this environment, that we sincerely have no idea what their real name is! The genesis of many of these nicknames is often quite mysterious. For instance, I finally met “Porc” whose birth-name is John. I think pretty much everyone on our thread thought Porc was a misspelled version of “Pork”, or maybe a classic nerdy reference to “porcine”. Porc must have been huge. Yah…no. Porc is smaller than I am, a tennis player back in the day.
“Porc” is a reference to his full nickname “Porcupine” which he acquired on DAY ONE of his freshman year when he refused to give up on a single shot in an epic spontaneous tennis match with “Chickie” (who arrived pre-named). “Man, you’re as prickly as a porcupine! You just won’t quit!” Chickie went on to refer to John as Porc all day and it stuck.
This weekend was “Kidfest 4”. 5 or so years ago one of the original members of the thread from the Class of ’79–the fulcrum year around which the group has been built by “Hollywood”, senior captain of both the football and baseball teams as a senior–survived a cancer that has a 95% 2 year mortality rate. Kid is a character who is universally beloved by every one of the other 184 of us, and this was the 4th time we’ve congregated at our alma mater for a football game and a group dinner at the college pub. We were joined by several other men who survived cancers, heart attacks, strokes and all of the other stuff men encounter as they age.
Along side a few were the wives who carried them through, and a couple of husbands who successfully did the same for their wives. It was this year’s unofficial theme, the year of the caretaker. Hollywood and Tammer pointed out that in some way or another we each played the role of caretaker at some time and in some way. Even among ourselves stories of care among our not all that little “family” were being exchanged and the embraces of thanks were shared. Some 6 or 7 years ago quiet inquiries about struggling threadsters were met with direct advice and assistance, something that the group was not really designed to do but quite naturally just did. By my count, just in the room, there were 5 cancer diagnoses caught early because guys were encouraged to get a test, and another 3 or 4 buddies who had cardiac disaster averted because someone insisted they get checked.
Mind you, this is not a group of goody-twoshoes. This is a bunch of former jocks, all of whom showed up on campus as a classic alpha-male who was king of the hill at his high school. We bonded in the locker rooms and on the fields and courts and rinks where we played our sport of choice. We became a pack of alphas. We learned how to put the team first, to lean on our teammates and be there for them to lean on, to depend on us. We brought all of this to the rest of our lives. We bring it with us to this day; I left last night’s dinner with advice from older teammates about the next phase of my life that I will apply tomorrow.
I know that the men who gave me the advice will be checking in to make sure I do just that.
And that boy, the QB who got injured as the clock was running down on what would become the last on the field victory of his career? Well, he was assisted by more than his family and his coach as he got out of his wheelchair and climbed into the truck. A couple dozen very large, impossibly young men from both Williams and Bowdoin were there to offer him encouragement and to wish him well. Young men who are living today what 185 men lived more than 40 years ago. A small circle of old men watched the Williams QB smile and thank his teammates and the day’s adversaries.
We tipped our caps and set off to join the rest of our crew, the men of Hollywood’s thread, as we gathered to celebrate all of the good in that room that has come to us since those days so long ago in the locker rooms and on the fields and courts and rinks of our past. The good in the room was us.
I’ll see you next week…
bingo
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