Good morning!
Dick Quinn will retire on Monday after 36 years of covering Williams College athletics. A good sports information director is hard to find, and Quinn was one of the best. Every week there’d be another email from him about a softball pitcher or high jumper, and to tell the truth sometimes it got downright annoying.

Nowadays a student can major in anything from sports psychology to marketing or management, but for Quinn it was learn as you go. He began when typewriters were giving way to word processors and pay phones were the last resort on deadline.

Born and raised in Williamstown, Quinn grew up watching football games at Weston Field. “My grandfather came from Ireland and was the college’s groundskeeper. Any time I mustered up the courage to speak to one of the athletes he was always polite and encouraged me to keep playing sports.”

Good advice except Quinn couldn’t throw a curveball or dunk a basketball to save his life, but he knew how to write and keep score. 

At Holy Cross he majored in history but obsessed in sports, so one spring day he asked athletic director Ron Perry about a job. A legendary athlete at the Cross, Perry had pitched the Crusaders to an NCAA baseball championship in 1952 and an NIT championship in ’54. He sent Quinn to Holy Cross SID Richie Lewis who sent him to Providence SID Mike Tranghese to help staff the NCAA basketball regionals.

One of his jobs was getting Indiana coach Bobby Knight to face the press after a last-second loss to Villanova. Knight was in a foul mood and refused to leave the locker room.

“He’s not coming,” said Quinn.

“The hell he’s not,” said Dave Cawood, a longtime NCAA official who was accustomed to Knight’s tantrums.

Knight relented but the volatile coach’s opening statement set the tone: “The first motherf***** who asks me about that last play I’m going to punch in the f****** mouth.”

A young reporter from the Boston Globe, Bob Ryan, raised his hand and asked, “After you punch me in the f****** mouth can you tell me about that last play?”

Quinn ascended up the ranks to become an assistant AD at Marist and then Iona. At both places he worked on team schedules, tracked the athletic budget and was the color commentator for Iona basketball.

When Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo heard Quinn’s broadcasts he encouraged him to send his tapes to Marty Glickman who was a broadcasting legend in the Big Apple.

When he was offered the sports director’s job in North Adams he decided to return to Williamstown and raise his family in the same home where he grew up. “Then Williams hired me for 20 hours a week,” said Quinn. “The same day I accepted the job at Williams, Marty Glickman called and said, ‘You need to move to New York City. I’ll get you a big-time color commentator job.’”

Quinn thanked him and declined. “I’m not a city guy. There’d have been a lot of travel and I was raising a family.”

Williams hired him fulltime in 1989, but he was a one-man band until the college let him use undergrads who worked for the minimum wage.

“It wasn’t just giving them a piece of paper,” said Quinn. “You give them a recipe. Don’t give weather reports unless it’s a factor, don’t make up excuses why they lost. Tell us what you see and not what you think. I always stressed it’s Division III. These are friends, parents and relatives who are reading and listening.”

Hitting a Sports Gusher

In 1996, a Williams skier named Nikki Kimball became the first of 47 athletes and coaches from Williams to appear in a weekly Sports Illustrated feature called “Faces in the Crowd.”

“I was eating lunch with the coaches and mentioned I’d like to nominate her and one them told me to reach out to Beth Schmidt,” said Quinn. 

Schmidt graduated from Williams in 1986 and wrote for SI until she left journalism to become a Las Vegas cop. “She gave me the secret sauce that I’ll never reveal,” said Quinn.

During Quinn’s tenure over 1,500 students worked for him covering 32 sports. “Writers, photographers, people pulling highlights, keeping statistics. It’s a commitment. We relied on them to be there and to be accurate.”

Each spring Quinn honored his staff by hosting the Deford-Pinsky Awards, named for late sportswriter Frank Deford and Aaron Pinsky, a student broadcaster who died of brain cancer.

Deford was the inaugural speaker in 1990. Other speakers have included ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, former NFL executive Ernie Accorsi and Patriots president Jonathan Kraft. Last month a Quinn protege named Jason Hehir spoke of directing “The Last Dance” about Michael Jordan. Afterward, college president Maud Mandel feted him and the College Sports Communicators gave him a lifetime achievement award.

When Dick Quinn leaves work on Monday he’ll become just another face in the crowd, and that’s OK with him. “It’s time,” he said. “Thirty-six years is a long time.”

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The Cadran Report: The MIAA oversaw nine tournaments separated by 31 divisions this spring, and according to Mike Cadran only three of the 31 state champions hailed from western Mass. Pioneer won the D-5 baseball title, Turners Falls won the D-5 softball title and Longmeadow won the D-2 girls tennis title.

Pioneer was 26-0 and defending champ Longmeadow was 24-0. The Lancers have won 47 straight matches. Meanwhile Turners Falls continues to hold off Taunton for the most state softball titles with twelve and 10, respectively.

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Pride of Greenfield Heather Ahearn says a “tight summer schedule” will prevent her from bringing the Stanley Cup to Greenfield. 

Ahearn graduated from GHS and UMass and is executive assistant to Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito. Last year she hoisted the Cup and was doused in champagne by Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett, but being the only female staffer in this year's team photo at center ice was far more important. “That was amazing,” she said. “There aren't many of us in hockey operations at any level, and that was special.”

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SQUIBBERS: So whattya think Dave Dombrowski would’ve gotten for Rafael Devers? More than the bag of balls that Craig Breslow got from the Giants. …. While we’re at it, White Sox catcher Kyle Teel was 3-for-4 in Chicago’s 7-3 win versus the D-backs on Wednesday. Chicago got Teel and shortstop Chase Meidroth who’s batting third and hitting .264 and two other players for Garrett Crochet who has seven wins at midseason. … Former Mets reliever Ron Taylor died last week at age 87. Taylor is the only Canadian to have won a World Series with two different teams — the Cards and Mets. After his playing days ended Taylor went to med school and became a doctor, inspired by visiting soldiers in Vietnam in 1972. … Rays pitcher Paul Gervase made his big league debut last week and held the Tigers scoreless for an inning. The 6-7 righthander had been waiting tables at an Olive Garden where diners probably agreed with whatever he suggested. … BSJ’s Greg Bedard on draft pick TreVeyon Henderson who rushed for 42 touchdowns at Ohio State: “He seems plug-and-play. He’s in the mix with everything. I love his balance. I love his explosiveness.” … The Gateway Center in College Park, Ga., seats 3,500 and wasn’t sold out for Sunday’s game between the Atlanta Dream and Chicago Sky with Angel Reese, but the T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas holds 18,000 and was SRO for the Aces win against Caitlyn Clark’s Indiana Fever. Ergo, how much will a ticket cost when the Fever visit the Gateway Center? As the Billy Joel song goes, ’She’s got a light around her.’ … Speaking of the Piano Man, a banner hangs from the rafters at Madison Square Garden that says: Most Consecutive Performances by Any Artist, 104 Billy Joel … Indiana senator Jim Banks lost his bet with his Oklahoma colleague James Lankford and will wear an Oklahoma City Thunder jersey on the Senate floor. … Congrats to Pipione’s for winning the 2025 Newt Guilbault League championship. … There’s no resisting the notion this a great country. Happy Fourth and Happy Birthday to the USA.

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@gmail.com