Larry the K's Lineup

  The Johnson & Wales University Wildcats celebrate winning the title on May 6, 2023. The Johnson & Wales University women's lacrosse team's season ended on Saturday (May 13, 2023) with a first-round 17-7 defeat to Christopher Newport University (CNU) at Gettysburg, Pa. The CNU Captains dominated every statistical category, en route to a dominating performance. The Wildcats trailed 5-0 before scoring two goals to pull within three, but the Captains pounced on the Wildcasts' uncharacteristic turnovers to take an 11-3 halftime lead. The Wildcats fought hard in the second half, but couldn't overcome their faster opponent and the goaltending of Hadley Chadwick, who thwarted several close-up shots by the Wildcats. As a result of the loss, the Wildcats --- the Great Northeast Athletic Conference champs --- finished their 2023 season with a 16-3 record. The team has much to be proud of this season, including being undefeated in conference play. Congratulations are due ...

  AI or Artificial Intelligence is with us, probably to stay, but those of us who value human interactions over those with automatic machines and robots --- it’s nearly impossible to get a human to speak with if you have the misfortune of having to call a bank, insurance or cable company (Xfinity is the absolute worst when it comes to trying to reach an actual human being) --- are pessimistic about the future of a society where human beings are rapidly, and inevitably, being replaced by machines. Self-driving cars may sound good to inherently lazy drivers, but it’s bad enough dealing with humans who go too fast and who like to cut people off and who refuse to go the speed limit on city roads, let alone on the interstates --- but can you just imagine how dangerous the roads will be when most cars are dependent on the efficient operation of machines?  That’s a frightening thought! This column, decrying the uses of AI and its likely increases in the future, was published in...

  Larry and Alana celebrate the championship. The Johnson & Wales University women's lacrosse team turned in a determined, gritty performance as they played their best game of the year to beat St. Joseph's College of Maine Saturday afternoon on their home turf by a score of 10-6 to capture the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) title. The Wildcats led wire to wire, holding leads of 2-0 and 5-3 after the first two quarters, respectively, and 8-5 after three, before a lockdown defensive game limited the Monks to just one goal in the fourth quarter while the Cats added two more to expand their lead to four goals with about 2 minutes to go. From there, the Wildcats used the clock to their advantage as they claimed the dramatic victory. Goalie Emma Glyman, who deservedly was named the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs, made seven key saves and complemented the Wildcats' tenacious defense. When time ran out, a wild celebration took place on the field, with one play...

  Johnson and Wales University's women's lacrosse team advanced to the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Women's Lacrosse finals on Saturday morning with a hard-fought 14-5 win over the Emmanuel Saints on Wednesday afternoon. Don't be fooled by the final score, as the Wildcats' leads were only 4-2 after one quarter and 6-3 at halftime, before mounting a second-half push to take a 10-5 lead into the final quarter, where they shut out the Saints and added four goals to account for the final score. Similar to the two teams' regular-season encounter, the Saints gave the Wildcats a real fight in the first half, and the game didn't feel comfortable until the Cats' dominating fourth-quarter performance. The conference championship will be decided at 11 a.m. Saturday (May 6) at Johnson & Wales when the Wildcats take on St. Joseph's of Maine in a rematch of an April 15 game in Providence that JWU won 11-9 on two late fourth-quarter goals. Another...

Boston-area sports fans who are trying to console themselves after the Bruins' stunning elimination from the Stanley Cup playoffs in the first round after Sunday night's 4-3 overtime loss against the Florida Panthers can take solace in a plucky New England team that is hanging tough in their own playoffs. I'm talking about the Johnson and Wales University Wildcats, who last week clinched the No. 1 seed in their conference (GNAC) lacrosse playoffs, and who on Saturday evening advanced to Wednesday's semifinals against Emmanuel College after breaking open a close quarterfinal game in the third period en route to an 18-7 win over Elms College. My daughter Alana (pictured), a senior who has been called upon to play defense, midfielder and attacker, played a good chunk of the game after one of the Wildcats' starters got two yellow cards from the "card-happy" referees. (One was the result of a questionable illegal stick call by one of the officials). Here's ...

  In the wake of the 10 th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, which was observed during Monday’s (April 17, 2023) 127 th running of the race, I’d like to share this column on a unique art exhibit held to pay tribute to the Boston Marathon five years after the 2013 tragedy. The art exhibit --- which was held during the month of April 2018 at the Attleboro Arts Museum in downtown Attleboro, MA --- offered a unique glimpse into both the bombings and their aftermath and the marathon itself. This column was published in the Wednesday, May 2, 2018, edition of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA: Link to this column: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/opinion/columns/larry-kessler-museums-marathon-exhibit-is-inspirational/article_0c135f7b-b8b9-537e-88b0-7abf563a33db.html Link to the story I wrote on the opening night of the exhibition on April 10, 2018: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/runners-high-attleboro-arts-museum-features-marathon-themed-art/article_4f7e...

It's not every day that I can play the proud papa role and tout one of my daughter's athletic accomplishments, but yesterday (April 12), on her 22nd birthday, my younger daughter Alana scored the first goal of her college lacrosse career during Johnson and Wales University's 22-5 rout of Albertus Magnus. That goal came about midway through the third quarter and it was the 18th JWU goal of the game. That was quickly followed by her second and third goals of her career, including one on a penalty shot. Getting a hat trick on three consecutive goals was a great way for her to celebrate her birthday. Her accomplishment is a testament to her grit and determination, because the only other competitive lacrosse she had played before this winter-spring season was on a club team during the second semester of her senior year in 2019 at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin, MA, where she was a four-year starter on the women's championship soccer team. He...

  Artist Mary Wojciechowski of Attleboro creates luminaries at the Feb. 18 museum art exhibit. The Attleboro Arts Museum, which serves the greater Attleboro, MA, area and beyond, is celebrating its 100 th anniversary this year, and that’s a most notable accomplishment. The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA, saluted that anniversary with stories in the paper on the weekend of April 8-9, and with this column, which was published in the edition of Monday, April 10. At the end of this column, I include the links to the stories and this column in case you’d like to check them out. ******* “Mazel tov” is the traditional Hebrew greeting when you wish someone well as they’re celebrating a “simcha” (a happy occasion). It’s most often uttered when wishing people well at milestone events --- bar or bat mitzvahs, marriages, births, wedding anniversaries, graduations and birthdays. It literally means good luck as “mazel” means fortune or luck and “tov” means good. But however you say it, in...

  The author is 3 (far left) and his sister Sharlene is 7 in this family photo. Passover, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Freedom, will begin with the first of two Seder meals tomorrow evening (April 5), and the holiday --- which commemorates the ancient Hebrews’ flight from slavery in Egypt --- carries an even deeper meaning these days due to what the Anti-Defamation League has called record-high antisemitism in the United States. It's both discouraging and chilling that antisemitism remains a major problem in 2023, but given the hateful nature of American politics these days --- when people (and not just extremists or would-be terrorists) demonize their opponents and openly talk about killing them and inciting riots and inflicting violence on them --- it shouldn’t come as a surprise. That atmosphere makes our memories of the holiday even more precious, and that’s the subject that I delved into with two versions of the same column. This column was published April 1, 2023, in ...

The good thing about making predictions for this year's Red Sox season, which will start tomorrow (Thursday, March 30) with the home opener against the Baltimore Orioles, is that the Sox's expectations are so low that if they're a .500 or better team, they will have improved over their 78-84 last-place finish in the American League East in 2022. Or, to put it in a way that fans of the iconic 1967 "Impossible Dream" team would understand, if they simply meet the spring-training prediction by that team's manager, Dick Williams, that "we'll win more than we'll lose," the season will be a success. That's because realistically, with all of the question marks surrounding both the lineup and pitching, especially among the starters, there's no way you can pick them to finish any higher in the AL East than fourth, behind the Yankees, Blue Jays and Rays --- and even that assumes that this year's Sox will be better than the once-lowly Oriole...