Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006
Congratulations to Spencerport wrestling coach Bill Jacoutot, who will likely record career victory No. 300 tonight as the man in charge of one of the state's best programs.    As Scott Pitoniak's story this morning in the Democrat and Chronicle notes, he demands 100 percent from his athletes but wouldn't dream of giving any less effort of his own. He's always the guy with no voice left at the end of a two-day tournament because of his non-stop coaching and encouragement.    He's talking about retirement after two more seasons, which would be a huge loss to New York wrestling. Football's letter of intent day is here. I sure hope Syracuse is finally able to fend off Marshall, Ohio University and James Madison for some prospects for a change. Those last few years of recruiting under Paul Pasqualoni were just brutal, and the new guy seems to be having some trouble hanging on to assistant coaches in the same fashion that Coach P did.		The National Federation has released its list of rules changes for the 2006-07 school year. I now know more about the libero player than ever before. But you had already sensed that, right?    I won't get into the specifics -- why ruin what's sure to be a best-selling book? -- but the libero will now be so ingrained into the fabric of the game that the National Federation actually went so far as to create a new job title: assistant scorer. The assistant scorer will be responsible for recording libero replacements, a sort of GPS system without batteries. The New York State High School Football Coaches Association has named Newsday's Gregg Sarra the winner of its 2005 Hunter Lowe Media Award for the second time in three years. Parting note: Thanks to someone out there for the anonymously submitted magazine article on a certain NYC high school. No, I won't be linking to it. I do look forward to the movie, however.

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006
Congratulations to Fulton for winning the Section 3 dual-meet tournament title for the 16th time in 18 years. The Red Raiders have long been the gold standard of wrestling in New York. Everyone in Section 3 circles the Fulton match as the big dual on their schedule, but the Red Raiders just keep on rolling.    Saturday's wins left them with a 128-0-1 record vs. Section 3 opponents over the last eight years. They beat ranked small-school foes Phoenix, Beaver River and South Jefferson this weekend. As noted by The Post-Standard, the 32-27 triumph over South Jeff matched coaching brothers (Mike Conners at Fulton vs. Pat Conners), quite the rarity in wrestling. I have no idea whether they're making money on the proposition, but the editors at Newsday surely are making friends in the high school sports community with the weekly Hi-Five magazine.    It's a safe bet that this week's Long Island edition gave more attention to niche sports -- fencing, for instance -- than than dailies in the state's five largest markets did combined. That's not a knock on those newspapers, but rather a tip of the hat to Newsday for trying to attract young people to their publication. Wow. I wrote yesterday's criticism of the University at Buffalo without knowing that Sunday's story in The Buffalo News would portray the administration there as a bunch of folks spending money like drunken sailors in order to keep old friends on the payroll after retirement. Now I understand why they feel the need		to ask Section 6 for $23,000 to rent the arena for two lousy days.    Not that SUNY would ever consider cracking down. They've got a few sacred cows of their own that need to be ground into hamburger. I used to think students at SUNY schools should be paying more for tuition than they currently do so that I'm not subsidizing every Tom, Dick and Harriet in the state. Now I'm of the opinion that we can keep tuition flat and just concentrate on cutting some dead weight. There's a fascinating story on The New York Times site this weekend about recruiting services that try to match athletes with colleges. I have no doubt that some of these services produce success stories -- helping schools find diamonds in the rough.    Having said that, though, I hate the thought of parents spending money on these services in the hope that it will turn a marginal high school athlete into the subject of a recruiting battle with all sorts of financial aid or scholarship money suddenly materializing.    It just doesn't work that way, mom and dad. The good coaches, from Division I football to junior-college swimming, always know who the prospects are before the senior year even starts. They've made their lists and checked them twice before the first practice of the year.    Can late bloomers still get noticed, especially with the help of a recruiting service? Absolutely. But more often than not there are smarter ways to invest money.

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006
The word out of New York City is that last week's meetings about forming a basketball superconference for PSAL boys teams were productive even if the concept does not become reality next season.    The idea is for 16 to 24 of the PSAL's better programs to make a two-year commitment to participate in the elite league. The league schedule could consist of anywhere from 10 to 16 games, which would still leave members with schedule slots for traditional rivalries and out-of-area competition, similar to what the top-end CHSAA programs are able to do.    Gone would be some of the 84-46 blowouts of outmanned teams that currently take place during the PSAL regular season. One consideration that must still be addressed is what the post-season tournament would look like, since lesser teams would still want (and deserve) a shot at playing for a title at Madison Square Garden. Longtime Minisink Valley football coach John Bell died Thursday night while undergoing surgery.    Bell, 58, retired from teaching last year but remained on the football		sideline, where his teams won 93 games in 20 seasons. Organizers of Scarsdale's early-January wrestling tournament must feel a bit embarrassed. They made a scoring error on tournament night and incorrectly crowed Tappan Zee as the team champion, only to correct the mistake a few minutes later and give the honor to Arlington.    Now, it turns out that a closer look at the scoring has identified Port Chester as the winner, with Tappen Zee sliding all the way down to third. Let me get this straight: The University at Buffalo wants to charge Section 6 something on the order of $23,000 to play five state quarterfinal basketball games there March 10-11?    Are they goofy or something? I realize that Buffalo State is an inferior facility in terms of seating capacity and some amenities, but it's also $16,000 cheaper and definitely not a bad place to watch ballgames.    Sounds to us like Buffalo State is working hard to be a friend to high school sports and UB doesn't want to be bothered with something so trivial. I'll see you at Buff State.

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006
The Maine Black Bears have reached into New York again for another football prospect, getting a verbal commitment from Jermaine Henderson, Batavia's 6-foot, 215-pound tailback who concluded his career with 3,372 rushing yards and 31 touchdowns.    For those of you not up to speed on that Division I-AA program, Maine has been recruiting New York hard -- there were 15 Empire Staters in the roster last fall -- for several years, and it's been a success story. For instance, QB Ron Whitcomb (East Rochester) has more than 6,000 career yards entering his final season and Ben Lazarski (Newburgh Free) was a repeat All-Atlantic 10 first-team center as a senior.    Third-team all-conference picks included receivers Kevin McMahan and Arel Gordon of Aquinas, who combined for 129 catches last fall, and defensive back Daren Stone (Lockport), who led the A-10 in interceptions. Fulton's dual-meet win streak against Section 3 wrestling opponents reached 125 last week. PSAL coaches and ADs are scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss formation of an elite division in boys basketball, which would be a pleasant development.    The CHSAA already does a decent job of pairing top programs against each other during the regular season, but most of the public schools in New York City get to coast through the regular season cruise control with the exception of a few games against top neighborhood rivals and maybe one out-of-state tournament.		I'm not advocating a murderous, Big East-like schedule -- Jim Boeheim's right for complaining about playing UConn, Villanova and Pitt a few days apart -- but there would be greater interest (and respect) if Wings Academy had to do more than just run the table in the Bronx for the first 12 weeks of the season. Bravo to State Supreme Court for sending 19-year-old Jason Green back to the sideline.    Green's eligibility was already on shaky ground last season, when he helped Goshen Burke win the Section 9 Class B championship. It turns out that his "eligibility clock" had already run out by last fall because Green was enrolled as a ninth-grader at Newburgh Free in September 2000 -- which Burke officials say they did not know about until recently.    Green transferred to Burke as an academic sophomore but an athletic junior in 2003. He turned 19 over the summer, so Burke AD Adam Kless petitioned Section 9 and the NYSPSHAA for extra eligibility. When that failed, Green's lawyers went to U.S. District Court and found a sympathetic judge and the player suited up for three games.    The 19-year-old rule is a good one and deserved to stand up under any circumstances. The fact that the NYSPHSAA was applying it to a fifth-year student (who then turned out to be a sixth-year student) made it even more right.    Any alleged ignorance of the rule is unacceptable. Common sense should have prevailed every step of the way.

Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006
There are a couple of highly appealing basketball events on the schedule next weekend as a number of teams dip a toe into the adult pool one last time to tune up for next month's local playoff action.    The inaugural Young World High School Challenge takes place at the Gauchos Gymnasium on Saturday, Jan. 28. The final two contests of the quintupleheader are Our Saviour Lutheran vs. Wadleigh at 6:45 p.m., and Rice vs. St. Mary's at 8:30.    The third Image Capital Shootout at Rochester's Blue Cross Arena offers spectators five games for $5 on Sunday, Jan. 29, including Niagara Falls vs. Syracuse Henninger (6 p.m.) in a pairing of highly regarded Class AA schools.    The undercard includes Class B contenders Lackawanna and Palmyra-Macedon at noon, followed by another Class AA showdown -- Rochester East vs. Jamestown -- at 2 o'clock.    East warmed up by edging Henninger, 64-57, on Saturday		in Syracuse. Niagara Falls journeyed to Iona College this weekend and toyed with New Rochelle, 84-59. There were some noteworthy N.Y. performers at the Yale Invitational over the weekend, particularly in the distance medley relay. Suffern's girls fired off an 11:45.73 including a :58.8 leg by Deahna Vinson for the all-time No. 3 mark by a high school quartet.    Saratoga's boys went No. 5 all-time with a victory in 10:09.37 with great splits all around: Greg Kelsey 3:04.6, Cameron Benidt :53.8, Greg Kiley 1:57.2 and Steve Murdock 4:13.8. I see that the Times Herald-Record down in Middletown has revamped its web site and now requires user registration for free online access. On the whole, I think I'd rather just write a check for maybe $3.95 a month rather than answer the zillion and three questions on the registration page. By the time I finished registering I literally could not remember which story I was trying to read.