Leading off today: The first time you heard Jason McElwain's name -- or the J-Mac nickname -- was a decade ago when he burst onto the national news and social media scene by scoring 20 points as a Greece Athena senior in his one and only varsity basketball game.
McElwain went on to become an advocate for publicizing autism causes, an assistant coach at his old school and a fairly accomplished marathoner who's twice run in Boston.
In February 2006, J-Mac played four minutes, hitting six 3-pointers, and fans carried him off the court. Video of his performance made national newscasts and led to an ESPY award for Moment of the Year.
On Sunday, he became a professional basketball player.
McElwain, now 27, signed a one-day contract with the Rochester RazorSharks of the Premier Basketball League for their regular-season finale and scored 10 points after checking in for the final 3:58. He went 4-for-8 from the field, including 2-for-3 on 3-point attempts.
The RazorSharks beat the Western New York Thundersnow 128-78 at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester.
The big picture: Bishop Timon-St. Jude has been in the news a couple of times this month regarding changes to its athletics program -- a serious upgrade to the football schedule and replacing a successful hockey coach with another highly regarded individual.
The Buffalo News took a closer look inside the school to get a perspective on what's going on.
"The days of great athletes in football, basketball, baseball, hockey and lacrosse showing up at your doorstep the first day of ninth grade are gone," AD and football coach Charlie Comerford said.
With that in mind, Timon is following in the footsteps of some fellow Western New York private schools. St. Francis is in the midst of a $4 million facilities upgrade, St. Joe's recently did a field upgrade and Canisius has marketed so aggressively that it has drawn students from Canada, the paper noted.
Other schools are trying to keep up.
"You don't want to sit back and say, 'I didn't try this' or 'I didn't try that.' I'd rather take a shot," Comerford said. "I think we transformed the program with like-minded people who know our mission, who know our goal."
You can read the full story here.
Format change: Wresting's Clayton Barnard Memorial at Hilton will switch from to a dual-meet tournament format from an individual weight class tournament format next season, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.
