Leading off today: I don't think that old saying about the third time being the charm applies here given the fact that the second time around was already wildly successful. Nevertheless, Chris Battaglia is returning to Aquinas for his third stint as the school's football coach.
The school made the announcement on Thursday, just 72 hours after confirming that it had dismissed second-year head coach Maurice "Moe" Jackson.
Said Aquinas President David Eustis: "More than the accolades, it's his unwavering dedication to the young men in this program that made this decision an easy one."
Jackson was coming off the team's first Section 5 championship since 2018, but that amounted to deck chairs on the Queen Mary compared to Battaglia's second go-round at Aquinas. After coaching there from 1985-88 before leaving for a college position, Battaglia returned in 2006 and rattled off nine sectional championships and four NYSPHSAA state titles over 11 seasons.
"At this time, the program needed someone that's familiar with it and can help it regather its feet," Battaglia told Pickin' Splinters. "It's a little off the tracks and we're going to try to get it back on the tracks."
In the first move in that direction, Battaglia enlisted Derek Annechino to join him on the Aquinas sideline. Annechino was the Aquinas head coach for six seasons after Battaglia left, and the two worked together on the Irondequoit staff the past two seasons.
Boys basketball update
We're down to just a handful of basketball teams still alive in each of the various sections and organizations across New York.
The NYSSWA's Steve Grandin has assembled the schedule of boys finals.
Connecting the dots
Three seemingly unrelated news items in 48 hours are joined at the hip in the big picture of high school sports in New York.
First, there was the announcement of upcoming rules changes in boys soccer as the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) looks to address sideline behavior. Nearly all state associations adhere to NFHS rules in most sports, and it makes sense for everyone to be playing under the same rules, particularly for interstate contests.
And those rules have mostly been invulnerable to interference. Courts are loathe to overturn a game official's rulings or even the hear arguments based on interpretations of the aforementioned rules. One development has been the increased use of replay reviews to clean up mistakes and head off problems before anyone even suggests going to court.
The next detail tying this story together is a video from the top executive of the NFHS regarding the governance of scholastic sports. More on that shortly.
Finally, there was the news out of Long Island that a State Supreme Court justice had ruled in favor of distance-running star Zariel Macchia in her bid to overturn an ineligibility ruling, thus allowing her to compete on Saturday in the state indoor track championships.
That court decision represented the third time in a month that Long Island athletes successfully went to court to overturn ineligibility rulings spelled out in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association handbook.
The ruling in the case of six wrestlers seeking to be restored to their league tournament, a first step toward possible participation in the state championships, was the right thing to do; because of a technicality, relief granted to athletes from other sports in their predicament wasn't able to be applied here.
As for the cases involving Macchia and a girls basketball star, however, the rules were applied as intended and were unambiguous. Still, the judiciary trumped the NYSPHSAA, and one of the consequences was collateral damage, as I tweeted yesterday:
"Six wrestlers, a basketball star and now a six-time state champion in distance running have convinced Long Island courts to overturn NYSPHSAA eligibility rulings in the past month. The wrestling situation was an instance of athletes tripped up by a rule not intended to be applied that way, so restoring them to their county tournament was prudent.
"However, there was no such gray area in the two other cases. The rules involved were longstanding, unambiguous, and applied previously.
"I don't think the justices and judges reversing the rulings are 'activists.' Rather, they may feel any error they might be making is an error on the side of caution to allow a last hurrah for the athletes involved.
"I have some level of appreciation for not wanting to harm teen athletes, but the NYSPHSAA handbook consists of rules that are meant to protect all competitors, including the ones that get displaced from competing when ineligible athletes are restored."
In short, which runners who didn't break a longstanding rule can't compete on Saturday because of the court's decision? Which basketball players might have had their playoff run cut short because a court allowed a player to avoid a mandatory suspension?
I'm onboard with the idea that courts sometimes might need to intervene in high school sports, but generally at the big-picture level -- i.e., if a school or an association potentially is in violation of statutes such as Title IX.
It's a problem, however, when the courts start picking apart rules that no reasonable person can argue violate laws. The one-game suspension for athletes ejected from games -- the issue in the Commack girls basketball dispute last month -- certainly comes to mind. Nevertheless, the courts have been going there with increased frequency, and the NYSPHSAA has been getting hammered of late because of it.
Now, take the issue to the next level: State governments have been getting increasingly active in regulating scholastic sports. Readers of this blog know that a downstate assemblyman in New York has been pushing a bill to force the NYSPHSAA and the PSAL to each conduct separate playoffs for public and private/charter schools. (Those readers also know I don't think much of the assemblyman's grasp of the issue.)
That's where the video mentioned early come in. Karissa Niehoff, the chief executive officer of the NFHS, pointed to external pressure, including government legislation, that has contributed to 10 states now allowing immediate eligibility for students changing schools. In some cases, states want to allow transfers multiple times without penalty.
Niehoff, who previously ran the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, makes the case that administrators, teachers and coaches, and those in state association offices are better-suited to determine what works best for athletes and their schools.
I wouldn't go so far as to say every one of them is more qualified than a judge or legislator, but they all are more involved with students and the sports that they play. That should carry more weight than has been the case recently.
