Saturday, Jan. 21, 2006
News arrived this week of the passing of Harry "Mickey" Connolly, whose rich resume included three memorable years in Rochester.    Connolly was a fullback who played under Frank Leahy and scored the first TD in Boston College's 1941 Sugar Bowl victory over Tennessee en route to a national championship. He went on to be a high school and college coach and then an administrator who championed women's sports.    After graduating from BC in 1943, Connolly turned down offers from the New York Yankees and the Chicago Bears to enlist in the Navy. After receiving his discharge, he coached high school ball in Norwalk, Conn., and then took over for the legendary Harry Wright at Rochester's Aquinas Institute in 1949.    His first team went 7-1 in the new, 20,000-seat Aquinas Memorial Stadium, and the following year's record was 8-0. As Democrat and Chronicle sports columnist Bob Matthews wrote, he was carried off the field by his players after a season-ending 21-6 victory on Thanksgiving Day over Boys Town before 20,382 fans.    The '51 team went "only" 6-2		against its usual national schedule, but the wins included a shutout of unbeaten Manlius Prep shortly before the Aquinas administration decided to scale back its football program.    Connolly left to work as an assistant at Indiana and as head coach at Xavier before settling closer to home. He was the AD at South- eastern Massachusetts from 1961 to 1987, where he championed women's sports before Title IX existed. Renowned coach Bob Hurley plans to retire in two years after collecting the 900th victory of his career at St. Anthony's in New Jersey, a school he has led to 23 state titles and three national championships in 34 seasons.    Making the announcement now will make for an easier transition, with Hurley more or less already annointing assistant Ben Gamble as his replacement. Last weekend's girls basketball showdown at Madison Square Garden, part of a tripleheader that attracted about 7,000 fans, leaves Christ The King No. 1 in the USA Today rankings. Murry Bergtraum slid one spot to No. 3, which seems kind of harsh considering the loss to CTK was by a mere 65-63 margin.

Monday, Jan. 16, 2006
"It was the best of high tech, it was the worst of high tech."    With apologies to Chaz Dickens and his A Tale of Two Cities, what we have here is two steps forward and one step back.    The steps forward come courtesy of the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester and Newsday on Long Island. The D&C (disclosure: I am employed there) rolled out a high school sports podcast, "Varsity Voices" last week hosted by reporters Jeff DiVeronica and James Johnson. Down on the Island, Newsday has started promoting a similar online initiative that apparently began Friday.    They join WXXA-TV in the Capital Region, which has been offering similar content this school year and goes the additional step of offering video podcasts.    And then, at the other extreme of the technology revolution, there's the New York Public High School Athletic Association. The largest sanctioning body for H.S. sports in New York had its site knocked off the Internet over the weekend because someone there allowed their domain registration to lapse.    That's pretty bad. Last time I looked, domain owners get about half a dozen renewal reminders in		the period leading up to the expiration date. NewYorkSportswriters.org got its first notice 10 days ago -- and we're not due for renewal until October. The 2005 all-state football team is now complete. We've added Mohonasen (Sec. 2) junior linebacker Joe Grassia to the Class A third-team defense to adjust for accidentally listing Jermaine Henderson of Batavia twice. There was a brief obituary in The Buffalo News last week noting the passing of Steven Collins on Jan. 11 at the age of 43.    Many high school beat reporters are familiar with that name because covering the Empire State Games is often their responsibility, and Collins was a fixture at that event. The Niagara-Wheatfield H.S. graduate racked up numerous ESG medals in pistol competition over the years and qualified for the 1980 Olympics but could not compete because of the Carter administration's boycott. Rice's 2-4 start in boys basketball knocked the Raiders down to No. 20 in Class AA of the NYSSWA ratings last week after 65 consecutive appearances in the top 10. Niagara Falls (79) and Mount Vernon (71) still had their streaks of top 10 showings intact entering the weekend.

Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006
Let us hope that the pools in Section 3 aren't as shallow as the logic behind recent decisions, otherwise they'll have to eliminate the diving competition from girls swim meets as a safety measure.    I'm sorry about throwing girls volleyball and swimming together like that, and so too should athletic officials who had any role in the recent decision to move the girls' Class AA volleyball season from winter to fall.    And a special brick bouquet has to go out to Liverpool athletic director George Mangicaro, someone who enjoyed a favorable reputation right up until the day last spring he filed a Title IX challenge that could easily hurt more athletes than it helps.    Saturday's Post-Standard sports centerpiece was a story by M.F. Piraino detailing some of the rationale behind the recent shakeup in Central New York's sports lineup. Reading it left me questioning the wisdom of leaving adults in charge of kids games.    Will someone please, please, please take a closer look at the implications here and start looking into whether it's too late to turn back the clock. Because the changes being made out of fear of not being in compliance with Title IX run contrary to the intent of that legislation -- the creation of more opportunities for females and the leveling of the playing field with their male counterparts.    What is about to take place will achieve neither. When all is said and done (fortunately, this is New York, so more usually gets said than done), fewer Syracuse-area girls will be playing sports and no leveling of the playing field with boys will take place. Rather, Section 3 girls will only be put on a par with girls from most other sections of the state.    And I'm pretty sure that we don't want to be opening the Pandora's box of creating this sort of same-sex equality. Otherwise, one of the next steps becomes telling Christ The King basketball and Saratoga cross country that they have to stop all national travel because preparing for state championships by taking on America's best is unfair to the schools that don't have the resources to do likewise.    Sorry, but don't penalize other schools and programs because George Mangicaro's idea of equality is to give a couple of local girls volleyball teams the opportunity to play for a state championship. Yes, Mangicaro and some other Section 3 administrators are going to disrupt the athletic careers of hundreds of girls so that a couple of dozen volleyball players might compete in one or two or -- at a maximum -- three more matches.    All in all, this is bad. and it's unfair to girls who are now going to have to choose between soccer and volleyball in the fall and then quite possibly not have a sport to play in the winter.    How did we get here. It took just a few simple steps:		(1) Liverpool's Mangicaro filed a Title IX (the federal law requiring gender equity in interscholastic athletics) complaint in April on behalf of his granddaughter, contending that volleyball players are being denied the chance to play in the state tournament, which is held in the fall.    (2) ADs at Section 3's Class AA schools, apparently fearing Title IX implications, voted 10-3 on Nov. 30 in favor of moving girls volleyball from the winter to fall starting this year, giving athletes (and some coaches) about nine months to decide how to proceed. The Post-Standard reported that only two of the 13 large schools have no volleyball players who would have participated in another fall sport next school year.    "The section refused to move on it because they said it creates one less opportunity in the winter," Mangicaro told the Post-Standard for Saturday's article. "It upsets me that our section would not give our girls in volleyball the opportunity to play in the state tournament."    Remember that quote, because what goes around comes around when it comes to opportunity. We're heading down a path in which all Section 3 schools, not just the large ones, may be told that they must play volleyball only in the fall. Many of them already have cross country and/or soccer teams in the fall. Swimming, tennis and field hockey are also fall options at some schools.    The remaining winter choices will now be basketball, indoor track and bowling. Ice hockey is an option at a few of the larger schools. Wrestling, I suppose, isn't out of the question either since there are 17 girls competing in Section 2 this winter and interest by girls has legitimately been growing over the last decade.    We now pause for some fuzzy math:    "Let's say seven girls who played soccer go to volleyball," Mangicaro told the Syracuse newspaper. "That opens up seven spots now on soccer so more girls will be able to play sports in the fall."    Um, George. What if your school is so small that you don't have seven extra girls available to help fill out the soccer roster? Now, suddenly, maybe you don't have a soccer program anymore. Or maybe it's cross country or swimming that dies. Or, ironically, maybe only four girls show up for the first day of volleyball practice, causing the coach and AD to pull the plug on that sport.    And one final thought, since allowing a couple of schools the remote possibility of winning a state championship apparently is so important:    You know those seven girls you just stole from the soccer team? What if two of them were the midfielder and the striker who would be the difference between a 16-2 season and a 9-9 season?    That happens, and you can kiss your precious state tournament opportunity good-bye.

Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006
Part 2 of the all-state football team -- Classes AA and A -- was released yesterday, which means we have more players of the year to introduce.    The Class AA co-players of the year are quarterbacks Greg Sullivan of Monroe-Woodbury (Sec. 9) and senior Naaman Roosevelt of St. Joe's in Buffalo's Monsignor Martin Association. The Class A pick is another senior QB, T.J. Czeski of Amsterdam (Sec. 2).    Sullivan led Monroe-Woodbury to the state title as a junior, completing 66 of 110 attempts for 1,455 yards with 19 touchdowns and four interceptions. He also ran for 1,017 yards and 12 more scores.    Roosevelt completed 144 of 234 throws for 2,112 yards and also rushed for 721 yards.    Amsterdam's Czeski was 110-for-187 with 1,618 yards, 25 TDs and only five interceptions for the state champs. Scratch Jermaine Henderson of Batavia from the third-team defense in Class A. The senior was part of the Class B team announced last week and accidentally included in this week's release. We'll fill out		the squad with a replacement pick to be announced soon. Don't miss the interesting story by Albany Times Union reporter David Filkins, who says there are 17 female wrestlers in Section 2 this winter. The idealists among us would like to believe this story isn't true, but the realists know better. There are no squeaky clean college athletic programs anymore.    A lawsuit by a disgruntled Stanford employee revealed that football players took recruits to a strip club three years ago using athletic department money, the San Jose Mercury News reported this week.    Stanford officials acknowledged the outings, which did not violate NCAA rules, and reported minor infractions that hosts spent slightly more than the $30 allowed for entertaining recruits.    Buddy Teevens, the Cardinal's head coach at the time, said he learned of the outings after the fact and addressed it with players and athletic department staff. Teevens now coaches at Dartmouth.

Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006
If you thought lacrosse was a niche sport, then we've got a flat-out obscure one for you to ponder. And it's coming soon to a beach not even remotely near you.    The Associated Press reported this week that surfing could soon become a competitive sport in Hawaii's public high schools.    The state Board of Education has given approval for schools to launch sanctioned surfing clubs beginning in the fall. That could pave the way for organized interscholastic competition by 2008.    Board of Education officials believe Hawaii will be the first state to have surfing as a school sport. I'll go out on a limb and say they're right.    Caution: Bad pun ahead.    Gives a whole new meaning to the expression, 'Let's do the wave,' doesn't it?		The game of the year in girls basketball takes place Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden as Christ The King (11-0) and Murry Bergtraum (13-0), ranked first and second respectively by USA Today, face off as part of the Nike Super 6 tripleheader.    Tickets are $15 (or $10 with a student ID), which makes it a much better proposition than your average Knicks game these days. The opener is Grady and Boys & Girls, ranked 11th and 24th respectively in Class AA by the New York State Sportswriters Association. The third game has Elizabeth, N.J., St. Patrick (No. 6 in the nation) taking on Rice. Looking down the road to Jan. 21, the Basketball City Shootout at Iona College looks like a promising way to spend a day. The six games start at 11 a.m. with Iona Prep vs. Scarsdale, a great rivalry in any sport.