Leading off today: William Floyd boys basketball assistant coach Darrell Sumpter died in an automobile crash on Friday,
Newsday reported.
Sumpter, 51, was on the varsity staff since 2015.
"Coach Darrell was instrumental in the creation of the WFSD youth basketball program and booster club that has made a difference in the lives of so many boys' and girls' student-athletes within our community," the school district said in a statement.
Suffolk County Police said Sumpter was driving on Sunrise Highway early in the afternoon when his car swerved and struck a truck, causing both vehicles to leave the road and overturn.
A passenger in Sumpter's car and the driver of the truck were taken to an area hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.
Basketball rankings
The New York State Sportswriters Association released the season's first
boys basketball rankings on Tuesday.
Steve Grandin, who compiles the rankings each week, and I have had a running conversation this month about to handle certain teams given two developments:
• The Federation Tournament in basketball is dead and unlikely to be revived any time soon.
• A few traditionally strong programs have turned to a scheduling approach that has them playing mostly out-of-state contests -- sometimes not by choice. In some cases, they are fielding two varsity teams with one of them mostly sticking close to home for opponents but the "national" squad with its stacked roster having to look elsewhere for the majority of its games.
Taken together, we have decided not to include the Long Island Lutheran national team in the NYSSWA rankings. Given LuHi's minimal connection to New York basketball (just five in-state opponents on the schedule) and the lack of a season-ending N.Y. tournament spot -- whether in the AIS or the Federation Tournament -- it makes little sense to rank a team that realistically could sit at No. 1 in Class AAA every week for years to come.
(We also engaged in a bit of a philosophical discussion about the purpose of the weekly rankings. Aside from being an assessment of where teams stand at a given moment in time, the rankings serve as a projection of how the playoff picture is shaping up -- first at the local level, then at the state level for the NYSPHSAA, PSAL, CHSAA, and AIS tournaments.)
To be honest, the Federation Tournament was more than a little goofy because LuHi and Albany Academy literally had unimpeded paths to the semifinals once their regular seasons were complete since there were no other AIS schools in the two largest classifications. That's an AIS issue that has made LuHi its collateral damage.
We're continuing to evaluate some potentially comparable situations, but Steve and I are inclined to rank teams that play some semblance of an in-state schedule and also have the opportunity to play in the season-ending tournament of one of the state's major governing bodies.
In a lesser change, we're no longer going to include Sunday games in the weekly ratings that come out a few days later. Even in the internet era, it can be a tall task for our helpers to track down the increasing number of Sunday results and still submit their area rankings in a timely manner. We'll simply reflect those Sunday results in the following week's rankings.
Passings
Glenn Faust, who coached the Clarence football program for 26 years, including 15 as the head coach, died on Nov. 23.
Faust went 84-45-3 overall and won nine Section 6 championships from 1978-89. He was inducted into Clarence's Wall of Fame in 2020.
Testy exchange at Buffalo Public Schools meeting
It's not just varsity sports that get people fired up. And it's not just parents who aren't afraid to air their grievances.
Reporting on last week's Buffalo Public Schools meeting, The Buffalo News recounted a difference of opinion about how the state's second-largest school district treats its modified sports program.
It was a tense back-and-forth between Terrance Heard, an outgoing school board member, and Aubrey Lloyd, the district's AD, over the program's direction. Heard was miffed about the status of modified football, a project he said he had helped spearhead, which was not mentioned in Lloyd's presentation.
The newspaper's account details the interaction, but the big takeaway is that a school board member seems to have waited until there were just weeks left in his term to make an issue out of something that seemingly is important enough to have deserved closer tracking. And he was bringing the fight to someone who's been in and out of the revolving door of BPS athletics administration of late.
In short, it was the dysfunctionality that reigns in plenty of bureaucracies.
Speaking of dysfunctionality
In Ohio, Athens City School District AD Eric Sholtis is under fire after the school's girls volleyball team was stripped of its district championship title. The culprit appears to be missing paperwork required for a transfer student.
The player, who moved from West Virginia in May, was deemed ineligible because there were no transfer documents submitted to the Ohio High School Athletic Association.
The eligibility issue was raised in mid-October, but the controversy has remained on the front burner courtesy of upset parents reciting a litany of recent issues they've had with the athletic director.
Among them was his preference for attending nearly every football practice but missing championship events in other sports, including the state cross country meet in November at which an Athens runner secured the school's first title.
Other complaints included a new fence for the softball field that left a light pole exposed in the outfield and allowing the new tennis courts to be painted (and unavailable) hours before the girls team's senior night match.
Expect to see more of this soon
The Leominster (Mass.) School District is considering a new policy allowing students, teams, and coaches to
refuse to compete against opponents with athletes of the opposite sex, but some students are opposing the idea, saying it targets transgender students.
The school committee first heard the proposal in its December meeting and will hear public comment at the January meeting.
"It's more important that everybody takes a look at this from all vantage points," said Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella, who is chair of the school committee. "In the end, do what's best for students.
The district's manual includes a statement upholding a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sex. The proposed change in sports policy could necessitate a revision that would require additional study.
