In the spirit of the season, I have made my gift list and checked it twice. Next, I am borrowing Santa’s sleek prototype plug-in hybrid sleigh to deliver presents. (Reindeer are yesterday’s ride.)
For University of Rhode Island football coach Jim Fleming, I have a trophy case to hold the 2025 Coastal Athletic Association Football Championship Trophy and his CAA Coach of the Year Award. URI was 8-0 in the league, the school’s first undefeated league record since the 1985 Rams were 5-0 in the gone-but-not-forgotten Yankee Conference.
Also for Fleming, a holiday card signed by URI stars — quarterback Devin Farrell, wide receivers Marquis Buchanan and Greg Gaines III, linebacker Moses Meus, and defensive back Andre DePina-Gray — pledging their return to Kingston for the 2026 campaign and a run for a third CAA championship instead of stepping through the transfer portal.
For Rhody football boosters, 10,000 LEGO pieces to construct a model of the new Meade Stadium while sections of the real Meade are demolished and replaced in time for the 2027 season.
For URI students, free bus passes to Centerville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket for Rhody’s 2026 home games.
I have a sixth ”W” for Brown football coach James Perry to give him his first winning season since succeeding Phil Estes for the 2019 campaign.
And championship banners for the gym at the new Rogers High School in Newport.
I’ll drop another Little East women’s basketball title at Rhode Island College, where coach Jenna Cosgrove’s Anchorwomen have won the last five regular-season titles and four LEC Tournament championships.
I have the AFC East championship for the rejuvenated New England Patriots and coach of the year for New England’s Mike Vrabel.
I have the AFC South title for the rejuvenated Jacksonville Jaguars under coach Liam Coen. Yes, the same Liam Coen who once played quarterback for La Salle and UMass.
I’m wrapping a winning season for PC men’s basketball but am still shopping for an NCAA bid. Coach Kim English could use one to silence his critics.
Similar gifts will go to URI hoops coaches Tammi Reiss and Archie Miller. And I have a fourth-place finish for Brown, which means a spot in the Ivy League tournament for coach Mike Martin’s Bears.
Best wishes for a return to prominence for Brown women’s ice hockey, once among the finest programs in the nation. The Bears are 9-6-1 and back in action next Tuesday at Maine.
Warm wishes for success are going to old friend Thorr Bjorn, the AD at URI for 18 years, now overseeing the rebuilding of the UMass football program, currently the worst in Division I.
I have gift bags containing lots of love for Rhode Island’s Division III sports programs. Salve Regina, Roger Williams, Johnson & Wales and Rhode Island College represent the state well. I have a little something for the Community College of Rhode Island and in the nearby South Coast of Massachusetts, UMass Dartmouth.
I have bows on another successful year for RIC athletics director Don Tencher. He has run the show since 1995, easily making him the dean of ADs in Rhode Island.
I have a box of optimism for the Rhode Island Interscholastic League on sorting out various playoff formats and on the 2027 launch of girls flag football.
A copy of Ever True: A History of Brown Football is going to athletics director Grace Calhoun so she can arrange appropriate recognition next fall for the centennial of Brown’s undefeated 1926 team known as “The Ironmen.” Brown’s 11 starters played every minute of their 7-0 victory over Yale and, a week later, every minute of a 10-0 shutout of Dartmouth. Two weeks after that they went 58 minutes in a 26-0 triumph at Harvard. They finished that season 9-0-1 and remain the only undefeated football team in school history. They shut out seven opponents. The tie — no overtime a century ago — was a 10-10 battle against visiting Colgate in the season finale. On Nov. 27, 1926, 30,000 spectators packed Brown Stadium.
I have a stocking stuffer for the Rhode Island Football Club: World Cup spillover. There has to be some benefit for the locals with WC matches just up the road in Foxboro.
A package of patience in a Celtics green gift bag has Jayson Tatum’s on it. The tag reads: “Please do not rush your rehab from the Achilles tendon injury that ended your season last May in the playoffs against the Knicks. Thank you.”
Best wishes for years of happiness are going to Houston Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña and Canadian soccer star Julia Grosso. They became engaged this month. Peña, the rookie star for the Astros 2022 World Series champions, has gone a long way from the ball fields of Providence, Classical High School and the University of Maine.
To those of you who read my musings, a bundle of gratitude. And to those who write, a special thank you!
Finally, to the entire Brown University community, the families of the 2 students shot and killed and the 9 wounded by a gunman on Dec. 13, I offer a figurative embrace and expressions of deepest sympathy, compassion, comfort and love. May the pall that hovered over College Hill and Providence last week lift while we struggle to understand why this tragedy occurred.
Until then, my friends, peace.
