Leading off today: Jack White, who literally wrote the book on Nassau County high school sports and was a godsend to reporters in search of historical data and obscure trivia, died over the weekend of an apparent heart attack in his Hicksville home. He was 70 years old.
He was one of the behind-the-scenes advisers regularly assisting the New York State Sportswriters Association with weekly rankings, all-star selections and maintaining records. Most recently, he and Andy Slawson worked together to produce Long Island football rankings incorporated into our statewide ratings.
"He was like a brother to me," Slawson said Monday.
White, known to many as "Jake," was closely identified with Garden City High School, where he retired from teaching in 2000 and attended nearly every football, basketball and lacrosse game for half a century, but his expertise extended to all of Nassau County and even beyond.
His "Section 8, Nassau County Sports Record Book," published in 1987, was the definite guide to the county's high school sports history as he made use of a vast personal collection of results and statistics to acknowledge every team and individual champion.
"There has never been a more knowledgeable person about Nassau sports than Jack White," former Newsday sports reporter Mike Candel told the paper. "He was the absolute most reliable source I ever had. He was accurate, he had details and he was always, always willing to help."
Said Garden City football coach Tom Flatley: "Every Monday morning he'd walk in with the football stats for the coaches, with a positive comment or an intelligent question. If you wanted to know something, you'd go to Jake. He can't be replaced."
Funeral arrangements were still pending as of early Tuesday.
A wild one: Hoosick Falls coach Chris Farley summed up Monday's game vs. Cambridge perfectly.
"This is softball in New York in April," Farley told the Bennington Banner. "It's windy for both sides, they can't use it as an excuse, both teams are in the same conditions."
Ralling from an 8-1 deficit by scoring 14 times in the bottom of the second, Hoosick Falls clawed its way to a 22-19 win.
The Panthers sent 20 batters to the plate in the second inning. Hoosick Falls plated 10 runs after there were two outs in the inning.
Earlier this month, Hoosick Falls scored eight runs in the top of the seventh to wipe out an 8-3 deficit and win.
"Yeah, it was ugly, but we came back and hit and they realized if they hit and played some defense we could win this game," Farley said.
Lizza Ryan was 3-for-5 with three runs scored, while Maddy Ryan was 4-for-5 with three RBI.
Progress report: Classes AA and A of the NYSSWA boys all-state basketball team will be released Thursday at 10 a.m.
Also, work is progressing on the girls basketball team. In a perfect world, we'll have that completed by late next week, though I'm still waiting on nominations from a couple of helpers.
Rising star: Shenendehowa point guard Kevin Huerter was already on the radar of a good number of Division I basketball coaches. And then interest in the 6-foot-5 point guard really exploded two weekends ago.
Huerter, who helped Shen win a New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class AA Championship, last month, came home from the Albany City Rocks' appearance in a Nike EYBL tournament in Hampton, Va., with a pocket full of new offers above the mid-majors that were already inquiring.
Huerter received offers from Xavier, Creighton and Rice during the weekend. Within 24 hours of returning home
