We gather here today, Minuteman football devotees, in these venerable pages to eulogize yet another season of gridiron grief. Autumnal pigskin pipe dreams spawned by hallucinatory optimism conjuring touchdowns, two-pointers and tackles are, once again, vaporized due to the UMass athletics department’s casual indifference to preserving traditions elemental and timeless.

An unrestrained profit-driven ethos mingled with faithlessness makes for a sinister brew. So, it is not surprising that department functionaries pursuing odious riches have, with premeditation, reduced the erstwhile crown jewel to a profane cash cow. As a result of this mad folly, a formerly revered and decorated sports program, immortalized by the fidelity and fortitude of yesteryear’s young men and their coaches, lies in ruin.

Once upon a time, a weekend stroll to the Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium resembled a communal festival in anticipation of a clash between equals likely to be competitive and engaging, with the outcome not predetermined. Nowadays, benumbed supporters, out of torpid habit and with nothing better to do on a Saturday, tramp to and from the stadium in funeral cortège lockstep.

Stay strong, true believers. Your collective suffering and discontent are acknowledged.

Though the football program is on death row, it hasn’t ascended the gallows. As sure as a vampire rises from its coffin, there will be a 2024 season. This despite the athletics department’s Van Helsings having already fashioned a wooden stake from a gratuitously dangerous, reckless and ill-fated schedule to drive through the hearts of guileless aspirants lured to the flagship school by specious enticements promising glory and acclaim.

Arranging lopsided, literally indefensible, sacrificial, morale-killing, buy-game contests in exchange for million-dollar-plus kickbacks has rendered the athletics department so bewitched with a counterfeit sense of accomplishment that the department is neither able nor willing to save itself from itself.

Yet, as the proverb inspires, hope springs eternal. Fingers crossed, an unsung, dauntless executive inhabiting the UMass archipelago personifying honor and obligation will soon step up and declare time of death on the eight-year, bitterly long, failed, gruesome, utterly regrettable nightmare experiment of FBS football in Amherst. Now, let us pray.

Jack Tulloss

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