The past 10 days have amounted to my longest leisurely stretch in a year and will be my longest time away from the NYSSWA website until some time in June.
But enough about my effort to get tanned and rested (with a brief interruption to cover the aftermath of the Kevin Ward Jr. tragedy at Canandaigua Motorsports Park). It's time to get back into the swing of New York high school sports.
Forced exile is over: Respected Rochester-area soccer coach Bill Hueber has landed on his feet after the summer drama in which he was unable to win reappointment to the Greece Athena boys program.
The Gates Chili school board has hired Hueber to coach girls varsity soccer there to continue a career that began with 25 years at various levels in the Greece district.
More changes: Literally hundreds of new coaches took the helm Monday as practice for most fall teams opened. A couple of noteworthy changes that were reported upon this week:
Mike Hurteau, a player on the school's state championship teams in 1996 and '98, is the new football coach at Troy. He'd previously coached the junior varsity there.
He replaces Jack Burger, whose two stints in charge covered 19 seasons with seven Section 2 titles and five trips to the NYSPHSAA finals.
Pete Alvanos, the former head coach at Hamilton College and most recently the AD at New Hartford, has taken over the football program at Holland Patent. He succeeds Rich Zacek, who held the position for two years and went 8-9 after inheriting a team that was 0-8 in 2011.
Holland Patent moves up to Class B this fall.
Lots of shuffling: Coaching wrestling at Colonie apparently is the new path to a career as an athletic director.
Former coaches Matt Stein and Joe Guardino are the new athletic directors at Mohonasen and Colonie, respectively, The Daily Gazette reported. Stein succeeds Joe Scalise, who moved from Mohonasen to Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake to replace Bob McGuire, who retired.
"I had been considering going the administration route the past few years, specifically the AD route, and a few opportunities arose," Stein, a former state wrestling champ who coached at Waterford-Halfmoon, Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk and Colonie, told the paper.
Stein's experience in project management may have helped sway Mohonasen officials, who are in the process of planning and implementing a $48.2 million capital construction project that includes work on the high school's athletic facilities.
Guardino was most recently a middle school principal. Previous AD Jason Semo left after three years for similar duties at Newburgh.
College choices: Canisius tight end/defensive end T.J. Wheatley told The Buffalo News he has no timetable for selecting a college. The 6-foot-6, 260-pound senior's list is
