THP #51: Third Place

November 13, 2024 – Franklin, Massachusetts
Dean College vs Lesley College
Women’s Basketball

I love going places with my daughter. She loves being out and about, waving hi to everyone she sees, and trying to sprint away from me down any and all hallways. Tiring work. Enjoyable work.

The thing you figure out quickly as a parent is how much corporations affect what you do in your recreation time. I just want to go out and spend time with my daughter. It can be a nightmare trying to find places to take her where the activity to be done is something other than explicitly spending money. 

It’s frustrating. 

At least there are parks and some form of infrastructure for kids her age. Teenagers? Forget it. 

I remember in my town when I was growing up, a town of 50,000 so not some sparsely populated area, the only place I could hang out outside of the house was the movie theater at the mall. The cement courtyard in front of the theater was really the only social gathering spot in the city for us kids old enough to want to go out but young enough to not have a car. Those 25 or so yards between the Not Your Average Joe’s and the Starbucks was it. 

And now, with a child of my own, I see how ridiculous it is to not have spaces for kids to just exist and interact and vibe and chill. My daughter is two so there’s plenty for her right now. Give it a decade and she’ll be stuck in that uncanny valley of not having a place just like I did decades ago. 

One day my wife and I will buy a bigger house and open our doors to all the neighborhood kids as a safe space for them to relax, explore, and just be. We’re looking forward to it, and it takes a village. However, there should also be places for kids in the community or the neighborhood to simply be without the expectation of spending money. 

No one NEEDS a new pair of shoes or a shirt they’ll wear once. Everyone NEEDS community and a place to exist without stress. Call your mayor. Email your state representatives. Ask why these places keep disappearing and demand that the ball get rolling to create new ones for kids now and forever. 

No matter where you are or what you do there’s always time for a moment with Bella.

Culture Stop

Franklin ain’t much for the memorable. A small suburb about half an hour southwest of Boston is the kinda place that has these signs around.

But there is one neat nugget of history in the city. Sitting directly across the street from the Dean College campus is the Franklin public library. 

 

 

The current building, the Ray Memorial Building, was donated by the Ray family in 1904. And yes, there is a Ben Franklin statue outside. He was ready for winter.

…

Located a short drive down 495 is the International Creche Museum that features hundreds of nativity scenes from around the globe. It’s downstairs inside the National Shrine of Our Lady La Salette

Once downstairs it uh….it was a lot of nativity.

While not a religious fella, I do love design and so many of these were stunning and they came in all sorts of media from wood to glass to synthetics to textiles. You could clearly see how much time and care was put into these. 

Some were even these absolutely obscenely large dioramas. Just massive in scale and detail.

Of course, this is America. And the real three wise men are commerce, consumption, and spending. It didn’t matter that it was a national religious shrine. The only way to get to the museum on this day was to go through the gift shop first. 

The Good Eats

About 20 minutes north, up 495, from Franklin is Owen O’Leary’s in Westborough. Now, this is right down the road from my office and I go there once a week for lunch. It’s a pub and it is excellent.

 

 

What keeps me coming back is the soup/sandwich combo. For $14 you get a sandwich with fries and a cup of homemade soup that constantly rotates. Everyone around my office, and even my mom, know that Wednesdays are “soup day.”

The soups have been all over the place. Split pea and ham, tomato & basil, spicy chicken tortilla, potato & leek, vegetable beef lentil. You never know what it’ll be. And since clam chowder is a staple on the regular menu it never shows up here. I’m a bad New Englander and really don’t like clams so this is a best case for me.

On this soup day it was turkey creole.

Fresh cooked meats, vegetables that still have bite, and being spiced without being spicy. It was a perfect soup just like so many I’ve had before.

The sandwich was chicken salad with the fixings on a toasted bun. Nothing fancy but done well. I used to be someone who NEEDED my food to be fancy. As I’ve gotten older I’ve morphed into someone who wants it done right. It could be the most simple meal, but if it’s done with care and quality ingredients it will absolutely beat any gastronomic creation some overpriced fine dining spot in Boston charges $45 for the privilege of being let down by.

And the fries are great. I’ve written here before on the importance of fries to a meal, and these frites always elevate.

…

A ten-minute drive from campus in Medway is the Muffin House. A small bakery chain in the area, the owner is one my dad’s 16 first cousins.

The muffins here are as good as you will find anywhere on planet earth. I’m a devotee of the chocolate chip muffin and scooped one to eat pregame. Just look how perfect this muffin is.

The top has a crunch around the edges while the body of the muffin is pillowy soft. I just wish I had some milk to wash this down with. Either way, it absolutely was worth the short drive out of the way 30 minutes before tipoff.

The Campus

Dean College has been through it throughout its history. It was founded in 1865 with an initial class of 44 students as Dean Academy. The original building, Dean Hall, burnt to the ground a few years after it opened. The current version was completed in 1874.

Oh, and the school was founded by Oliver Dean, a doctor, theologian, and philanthropist of the era.

The school evolved into Dean Junior College in 1941 and then began offering bachelor’s degrees in the year 2000. It wasn’t until 2015 that the Dean athletic teams began competing against other four-year institutions.

The 100-acre campus looks very mid-century in a lot of ways. Brick. Concrete. Straight, sharp lines.

The Game

The Pieri Gymnasium sits right along School Street on the edge of the Dean campus.

It is connected to Memorial Hall which is much more regal than the adjoining gym. You walk in and are welcomed by a room that feels more like a set from Bridgerton or a colonial-era period piece than sitting ten steps from a basketball gym.

Memorial Hall features awards of past success as well as the Dean Athletics Hall of Fame.

Pieri Gym? As bare bones as it gets. The lobby is a few chairs. That’s it.

The competition arena is just as small as you’d expect from a D3 program less than a decade into its NCAA life. Stands on one side. Cramped and close to the court. It’s a nice place to see the game. The gap between the front row and the sideline is inches, not feet.

The bench side of the gym has numerous banners to past success hanging. All are from Dean’s junior college era. Region XXI is the local junior college region within the NJCAA.

The game was….something. Dean vs Lesley was a game I had circled long ago in the preseason purely because of how bad I thought it would. In the three seasons since COVID cancelled the 2020-2021 D3 season, these programs have combined to go 10-124.

In a world as deep and wide as Division 3 basketball, there are teams that are good and teams that are not good. That’s how it goes.

However, these two came into this one a combined 3-0 to start the season so I had hope it would be better than advertised.

And it started well. Both teams showed up with boundless energy. Alexandria Paquet dropped in this smooth three for the host Bulldogs early.

Dean opened up a 16-8 lead late in the first quarter before the Lynx found a way to come back in the second. However, those mistakes? Yeah, they became the dominant theme of the evening as the sun began to set.

The mistakes were aided by a calvalcade of missed shots. There would be 88 missed shots in the game to go with 57 turnovers.

There was so much  energy on the court and very little in terms of directing that energy toward something. It was an incredibly frustrating watch to see everyone playing hard yet also feeling like ships at sea without sails.

Through it all, Dean maintained the lead despite Bella Terry. The Lesley forward was dominant inside for the Lynx. She finished with a monster game of 24 points, 15 rebounds, and three blocks. Her bucket here kept Lesley in site of the Bulldogs late in the first half.

Also, take note of the shot clock toward the end of that possession. Even that was having a hard time with this one.

Even as I was watching mouth agape at the play on the floor, everyone was giving it everything. Look at the charge that Leila Chisholm gets. She gets legit air time to draw the foul. A hell of a play.

Down two, and with a chance to tie it going into half, the opening 20 ended with a sequence that was everything this game was. A dropped pass. A heave due to not realizing how much time was left. Some attempts at rebounds. And a vertical shot. It was art, really.

The second half saw Terry continue to control the inside. She would find spots inside on the block and finish immediately.

Even with Terry in control inside, she had nearly half of Lesley’s field goals, the third quarter saw Dean maintain a lead. The Lynx couldn’t get it under five points because they kept playing too fast.

Mistakes like these kept building up for the Lynx.

Dean always had the answers. All five starters had at least six points. Abi Boutin had a 10-point, five-rebound performance. Tori Viau played 35 minutes and finished with 21 points and four steals on 8-17 shooting. The Bulldogs had enough.

And then there was Paquet.

She was spectacular. This three, paired with this nifty And1 from Maranda Cournoyer opened up an 8-point lead and gave the Bulldogs all the breathing room they would need.

Dean 70, Lesley 56. Final.
Player of the game – Alexandria Paquet (Dean): 22 points, 17 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals.
Time of game – 1:43:14
Admission price – Free

This game was one of a kind. There is something bizarrely magical about spiraling down to the bottom of college basketball and staring up at the world. I loved it. I hope both programs find much success in the coming years.

That’s all for this one. Season six is off and running. And now here’s one for the road…