Williams College President Thanks Berkshires Healthcare Heroes

By Maud S. MandelGuest Column
11:51AM / Wednesday, March 16, 2022Print Story | Email Story

In 2020, COVID-19 turned our lives upside down. Medical and public health experts rushed to treat the sick and contain the spread. At Williams, we closed our campus and helped students leave for their safety — a sad milestone in our 227-year history.

Today, the college is once again bustling with students, faculty and staff, learning, living and working on campus. Throughout the Berkshires, communities are starting to emerge and look to the future again.

Thursday, March 17, was the second anniversary of Williams' closure. Today, the college's senior staff and I want to thank the outstanding medical and public health professionals of Berkshire County and the region for caring for area residents so well throughout the pandemic.

Presidents and CEOs Dave Phelps and Darlene Rodowicz at Berkshire Health Systems and Tom Dee at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center provided strong leadership as they and their teams of devoted doctors, nurses, staff and volunteers organized and ran testing programs, traced close contacts and provided dedicated care in extraordinary circumstances. At the same time, they also offered expert counsel to Williams and other area employers and organizations.

Our gratitude extends, too, to all the heroic first responders, health-care professionals and public health specialists who have worked so hard these last two years.

The people of the Berkshires have been through a lot. We mourn the many whom we have lost, and work to support others still on the long path to recovery. But with spring finally on the way, we at Williams want to take this moment to publicly thank the good people — partners, colleagues, friends and neighbors — who have helped bring hope back to our beloved Berkshires.

Maud S. Mandel is the president of Williams College.

Tags: COVID-19, Williams College,

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Coach John T. Allen Remembered for More than Just Wins

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
04:35PM / Wednesday, October 14, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — John Agostini says his high school football coach was the most important influence in his life except for Agostini's own parents.

And, like a good parent, John T. Allen knew how to push the right buttons.

For Agostini, that moment came not long after Allen made the Mount Greylock Regional School eighth-grader feel special by inviting him to be the only member of his class to play on the varsity team.

"After football season had ended, I encountered a different John Allen, an angry John Allen," Agostini recalled on Wednesday morning. "I was in the very small weight room we had at Greylock at that time. I vividly remember John Allen entered the weight room. He had fire in his eyes. And, worse yet, he had rolled up papers in his hands.

"The papers were a list of people who were on the honor roll. While waving those papers at me as if they were a tomahawk, he informed me that my sister's name was on that list. My name was not. Coach then proceeded to go up one side of me and down the other without giving me a chance to respond. He then stopped and, in a much calmer voice, he said something that hurt me more than anything else. He told me he was, 'disappointed,' in me. Coach Allen was not somebody I wanted to disappoint.

"At that moment, John Allen absolutely ruined my day. But looking back after all these years, I understand something: He may have ruined my day, but, in a very real sense, he gave me my life."

Agostini, a 1971 Mount Greylock graduate who served more than 20 years as a Superior Court judge, delivered the eulogy for Allen, who coached football at Mount Greylock for 39 years.

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