Ahhh, the sights and sounds of spring.

Here are a few tids and bits as this is one of the best times of the year with March Madness, the NFL, and MLB joining the endless news of pro hoop and hockey:

— Local high school spring sports coaches must be chomping at the bit, forced to wait until a week from today to start tryouts and practices due to the precautionary later start to the preseason instituted by the NHIAA.

That’s because there’s no snow on the ground, and temps most of the week are going to be in the low 60s, perhaps as high as 70 by Thursday. Then back to more seasonable low 50s by the following week. But hey, spring has sprung, and they’ll be happy to get back out there. Stay tune later this week for NHIAA Executive Director Jeff Collins’ comments on the winter season, which had to be deemed a success as all sports had their champions crowned with very few COVID casualties. Athletic directors everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief as now most sports, save for boys volleyball, will now be outdoors. But it’s too bad teams have to miss out on this week.

—- The Patriots moves this past week were almost like another draft, as they had the money to spend and did just that. Perhaps the only big overpayment was in the case of former Raiders receiver Nelson Agholor, who has $16 million guaranteed over two years. Next year those free agents who underperformed will either be released or have their contracts restructured as while the cap may go up, it won’t go up to the level where the Patriots can be big spenders again.

But one thing these moves do is create camp competition. The draft choices of the last couple of years who haven’t really performed well will be under the gun.

“Bill (Belichick) doesn’t have to say a word to them about what this means,” former Patriots linebacker said Sunday morning on Boston’s 98.5. “They know they’ve been put on notice. It should bring out the best of them adding these guys. … You’ll see better performance out of these young guys because they brought in these older guys.”

—- A couple of months ago, many of you may have missed the fact that a former Des Moines, Iowa sports radio host was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison after being convicted of swindling at least eight people out of about $1.5 million.

That sports radio host is none other than Marty Tirrell, who ran two Nashua radio stations back in the early 2000s, and it was Tirrell actually who brought the idea of “Friday Night Lights” to local radio for football and basketball – having various correspondents (including yours truly) report on ongoing games with brief updates rather than have one game broadcast. His scams were centered around sports tickets. A somewhat stunning account of Tirrell’s story can be found at https://www.dmcityview.com/civic-skinny/2021/01/20/tirrell-gets-41-months-here-is-his-life-story/.

Very sad.

—- Some area golf courses are definitely open for business this week with the warmer temps and no snow covering fairways and greens.

But how about this: A study done by GolfSupport.com determined that New Hampshire, to no one’s surprise, is the eighth worst state in the country to play golf in during the spring. But don’t tell that to the hackers who will no doubt be populating the local courses this week (heck, many have already).

New Hampshire garnered a minus-29 points in the system used, based on variables such as precipitation, temperature, average number of clear days, humidity and wind speed. The worst? Vermont, according to the study, with a minus-155. The best? Florida, with a plus-414.

We know. Shocking.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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