UConn’s Matt Costello returned to campus from Maui in November after playing some of the best golf of his college career, 6-under par for the three rounds of the Ka’anapali Classic. He made seven birdies in a row at one stretch during his second-round 67.
“Kind of a bummer it was the last of the fall season, it kind of felt like things were turning,” he said. “But it put me in a good place for the spring. Really excited to get back after it.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCostello will have to be patient, though, let the future come to him. This is some of the life coaching he gets from his grandmother, Babs, social media’s unlikeliest influencer, a rock star.
“I always tell Matt he’s been greatly blessed,” Barbara Costello said. “And to use his gifts and not worry and go out there and just relax. Golf is an extremely intense pressure sport, it’s got to be, but you also need to know that you have these gifts, you relax and you use your gifts. … And win or lose, you’ll always be a winner in our eyes.”
Vivacious Barbara “Babs” Costello, retired teacher, began using her gift of gab when her daughter convinced her to make a video in 2020, sharing one of her recipes. “And I thought it’d be one and done,” she said, flashing a grandmotherly dash of sports lingo.
Innocently, reluctantly, she plunged into the snark-infested waters of social media during the pandemic, flooding it with warmth and family vibes, and people responded overwhelmingly.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“None of this was planned,” she said. “You know, God has a plan for your life and you just go along and go, ‘Wow, how did this happen?’ It’s like people were looking for family, they were looking for their moms, grandmas, looking for some kind of normalcy and here’s this older lady on TikTok talking about cooking and obviously it struck a chord.”
Recipes, kitchen hacks, life tips — @BrunchWithBabs now has 3.9 million followers on Instagram, another 4.2 million on TikTok, 16,700 subscribers on YouTube — and all are encouraged to click on this column each and every Sunday morning. There is also her cookbook, substack, TV appearances. I was unfamiliar with Mrs. Costello, but after some binge clicking, this confirmed bachelor has learned how to make Key Lime ice box cake, get out stubborn oil stains using a toothbrush, and keep yellowjackets from invading an outdoor party by leaving an open can of tuna 30 feet away. Her YouTube channel bills Babs as “the internet mom/grandma you didn’t know you needed.”
At family gatherings, Barbara would have all the grandkids put their iPhones in a box upon entry, so as not to detract from family time. And now she’s one of the stars of the tiny screens in their hands?
“If you told me five years ago my grandmother would be like this famous social media influencer, I would have said ‘You’re crazy,'” Matt said. “But it’s been awesome to see. She loves it, she loves interacting and all the positive comments she gets. And I love it for her. She has not changed, she’s just the same person she was five years ago.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBabs and her husband Bill, “Mr. Babs,” even made a golf-themed video for NBC Sports before The Open in 2021, where she smacked his hand off a doughnut and offered tips to “take eight strokes off your golf game:” Get a good night’s sleep, eat a healthy, protein-rich breakfast and keep hydrating.
“That was a very fun one,” Matt said. “The good stuff to do pre-rounds. Something we could both relate to and I could help with. ”
Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: Rare stress test for Geno Auriemma, CCSU slays another giant, and more
Videos of her recent trip to Notre Dame, where she punted, ran with the football, took a campus tour, are going viral right now. Barbara Costello, 77, a Chicago native and Marquette grad, settled in western Connecticut and became a teacher, raising four children and now enjoying eight grandkids.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHer son and Matt’s father, Bill, graduated from UConn, as did Matt’s older sister, Mary. Matt’s father gave him a set of plastic clubs as a toddler and he swung them, his grandmother remembers, like a grownup golfer, a natural. As he grew up in Staunton, Mass., Matt Costello became one of the top high school and young amateur golfers in the state, and targeted UConn as a dream school.
Coach Dave Pezzino rolled out the big artillery, taking the Costellos to a UConn men’s basketball game at Gampel Pavilion, and the recruiting deal was sealed.
“The kid’s a workaholic,” Pezzino said. “He played a very demanding junior schedule, any time, against anybody, and that resonated with me. Great handshake, looks you in the eye, a real Connecticut man, even though he’s from Massachusetts.”
Now Matt Costello, a lefty swinger, and Ellington’s Bradley Sawka, the Dick Tettelbach Award winner as Connecticut’s top amateur, are a 1-2 punch for UConn on the links. The team’s training trip to warm weather comes in January, with the spring season to follow.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I think my golf game has matured the most, with the leadership to my teammates and with Coach,” Matt Costello said. “My course management has progressed, and there is room for improvement there. That’s the biggest thing for me, confidence in course management. … I still think I’m scratching the surface and my best is far to come. I don’t really have a goal, I just want to work as hard as I can, see how far, how good I can get.”
From freshman to sophomore year, Costello lowered his average from 76.2 to 72.8. His grandparents get out to watch him compete for UConn when they can, Babs brings the warmth and the life tips her family, and the world, find so comforting. “She’s always taught me, just staying patient and letting everything come to you,” Matt said.
“I get nervous, especially putting,” Babs said. “The strong, powerful strokes early in the game, fine, but then putting. He practices constantly. Sometimes I close my eyes and say a Hail Mary, and if everybody cheers, I know my prayers were answered.”
More for your Sunday Read:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementDom Amore: Jim Mora leaves UConn football far better than he found it. Now, what’s next?
Still unpacking Jim Mora’s departureA few stray thoughts and fallout from the big news of the week. … Given Jim Mora’s departure from UConn, done in the unfortunate, abrupt, slip-out-the-back-Jack way these things are done nowadays, it’s a good time to point out one thing the NCAA, with full cooperation from the colleges and agents, should wade into: The timing of the coaching carousel and transfer portal.
In football, coaches jumping and players hitting the portal or opting out with a bowl game, even playoffs, still ahead is a nationwide epidemic. Open the portal Jan. 10 or so, and put a moratorium on coaching hires until that date. This would leave plenty of time for recruiting and portal surfing once positions are filled. If that’s not possible, then you might just as well get rid of most bowl games outside the playoffs. They’ve become meaningless exhibitions with interim coaches and JV lineups.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement*Don’t be too concerned (yet) about UConn players entering the portal. Several players, including Skyler Bell, entered before the Fenway Bowl a year ago. Some played, some didn’t. Some came back, some didn’t. Players are wise to explore options, gauge interest, see how the coaching search plays out, gain leverage.
*Geno Auriemma’s take on the search: “Dave Benedict seems to get these things right, so I’ll leave it up to him. But we’re in much better shape than we were four years ago, so the pool of candidates, internal or external, a much greater pool to choose from and that’s because of what’s happened here since Jim took the job. Jim did what great coaches do, he put his stamp on the program.”
*Mora will be formally introduced at Colorado State on Monday. A head’s up for our brethren out there: Be ready to fire off questions. Hesitate half a second and he’ll disappear faster than a character on “Bewitched.” (We’re half joking).
‘She expects way more:’ UConn star Sarah Strong on pace for record-breaking sophomore season
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSunday short takes*In this crazy, crass age in which we live, pearl-clutching over a coach’s foul language doesn’t do much for me. But one thing Dan Hurley should avoid is referring to the medical staff when players are injured. Even if he is just frustrated about the injury and doesn’t mean to point fingers, it can easily be interpreted that way. It’s just not a good look, or sound.
*Wait a minute. The Yankees’ payroll isn’t high enough? Are we really having that conversation?
*Yale basketball is off to another good start, taking home the trophy from the Virgin Islands after beating Wisconsin-Green Bay, College of Charleston and Akron in the Paradise Jam, going 21-for-21 from the line in the championship game. Senior Nick Townsend was the MVP, averaging 22 points, 6.7 rebounds and 6.0 assists. Meanwhile, Conard-West Hartford’s Riley Fox is growing into a bigger role for the Bulldogs as a sophomore, averaging 12.9 points per game, shooting 52 percent on 3-pointers.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement*Lenny Bonn, 72, is retiring after 50 distinguished years coaching football in Connecticut, most of it at Notre Dame High in West Haven, Branford High, where he was head coach, and his alma mater, Southern Connecticut, where he worked with running backs and special teams.
*NBC-CT loses an industrious, young talent, and Detroit gained, when Matt Finkel peace’d out as sports director at Channel 30 earlier this month. Wish him the best in his new, major-market gig.
*Auriemma was also effusive in his ZOOM call Friday effusive about quarterback Joe Fagnano: “I think one of the greatest stories in college football and the best story here is what Joe has done. He got here, had the job, then he lost it, had it, then lost it, easily that kid could have said, ‘I’m out.’ But the kid hung in there, guys from Pennsylvania who are Italian have a tendency to do that, and he had a season for the ages. One of the best stories in Connecticut sports in a long, long, long time.”
Last wordSemi-serious question: If Sarah Strong played 40 minutes against some of UConn’s conference opponents and set her mind to it, could she get a quintuple-double?
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