Leading off today: Stop me if you've heard this one before: A national soccer organization has a plan to develop the next generation of American talent but it works best if prospects forego high school careers.
This chapter of the story begins with Tuesday's announcement, as reported by Newsday, that the MLS Next Pro men's developmental league will place a team at a new 2,500-seat stadium in Uniondale's Mitchel Athletic Complex in March 2027.
MLS Next is Major League Soccer's youth development program. Its athletes are not allowed to play soccer on any level at public schools, though competitors attending private schools can apply for a waiver to the edict.
If that sounds familiar, that's because it's a page from the playbook of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, which launched in 2007 and went belly-up a month after the pandemic shut down all sports in early 2020. The Academy system also demanded that players choose between their high school team and the national system that prioritized eight months of training-intense work broken into two segments over the course of the year.
"I think (MLS Next is) a positive thing, but one of the problems we're having right now, these academy teams are telling kids they shouldn't play high school soccer," said Pat Pizzarelli, the Section 8 executive director. "Kids need to play school ball. It's good for them. The academy is something extra, and it's fun and good for the kids. But I don't see a reason why they can't play both."
Now in its fourth season, MLS Next has sent more than 160 players onto MLS rosters, though mostly on reserve rosters. It's franchises are mostly in markets with MLS franchises, so the immediate implication for New York scholastic players is in the tri-state area. There are currently two New York CIty teams in the league.
The MLS Next regular season's weekly games runs from early March to early October. Playoffs culminate with a mid-November championship game, so the overlap with the high school season would require buy-in from all parties on a schedule that doesn't break down young bodies.
"A lot of these guys want to play for the high school," Rockville Centre South Side coach Pat Corvetti said. "They want to play in front of their girlfriend and with their friends. They want to play MLS Next, too ... It's not, 'Play one or another,' it's 'Play a combination of both.'"
Title-winning Tappan Zee coach retires
George Gaine, the winner of 361 games, four Section 1 championships and a 2023 NYSPHSAA crown, has stepped down as the boys basketball coach at Tappan Zee,
Kevin Devaney Jr. reported.
The trademark of Gaine teams was physical, disruptive defense that translated into low-scoring games. Last season's teams bowed out in the state semifinals against Binghamton.
Passings
Marty Domres, the former Syracuse CBA standout who etched his place in NFL history by becoming the quarterback who replaced the legendary Johnny Unitas with the Baltimore Colts, died Monday. He was 78.
Domres starred in football, basketball and baseball at CBA, graduating in 1965. He went on to a record-setting career at Columbia University, and the San Diego Chargers made him the ninth pick overall in the 1969 NFL Draft. He signed with Baltimore after three seasons with the Chargers.
The Colts traded Unitas, slowed by injuries over two years, to San Diego following the 1972 season. Domres started nine games in Unitas' place in '72, then made 15 more starts over the next two seasons.
Domres also played for the San Francisco 49ers and New York Jets before retiring in 1978. He finished with a 12-20 record as a starter, throwing for 4,904 yards and 27 touchdowns in 90 NFL games.
After football, Domres made Baltimore his permanent home and took up a career in finance.
