Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006 (second entry)
Our condolences go out to the family and friends of Mark Milano, a Spackenkill High junior who died Saturday morning after suffering an ankle injury in Friday night's game at Millbrook.    As of this writing, the cause of death is unknown. Jim Milano, who is president of the Spackenkill board of education, said his son died in his sleep after being treated for a dislocated ankle and released from a Poughkeepsie hospital.    Numerous students, parents and area residents gathered at the high school for a candle-lit memorial service Saturday night. The proverbial cooler heads prevailed last week, and Mike Myers was allowed to return to the football sidelines at Watkins Glen.    Myers' resignation under pressure was reclassified by the school board as a one-game suspension after the coach sent a letter apologizing for his actions Sept. 22 during a game at Lansing, where Myers was involved in a sideline incident.    The altercation, in which Myers admitted grabbing but not punching the parent of one of his players, led to the coach sending his resignation to Watkins Glen Superintendent Tom Phillips. Myers rescinded the letter later in the week. Don't worry about the shoe companies. They'll do just fine		without their basketball camps.    Word came down last week that Nike and Adidas are shutting down their summer showcase camps, although the Reebok-sponsored ABCD camp is expected to remain in business for at least two more summers. That's how much time remains on their consulting contract with Sonny Vaccaro, quite possibly the most important man in basketball not employed by the NBA.    The decision by Nike, which was spending well over $500,000 on its four-day camp for 150 players, and Adidas was in part the result of the recent NCAA/NBA Basketball Summit in Indianapolis. Panelists there expressed a desire for more education-oriented camps, so Nike will emphasize its skills camp in June for 30 elite players in Beaverton, Ore.    The New York Daily News said Adidas may try the same approach.    The net effect is that hundreds of players who would have been candidates to attend one of the higher-profile camps will now have to look for alternatives or just stay home.    Look for the money to filter down to some smaller, regional camps and to more high schools in the form of sponsorships that will allow teams to travel to more out-of-state tournaments -- run by friends of the shoe companies.

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006
It's taken more than the day or two I promised last time out, but here are a few thoughts about computer-generated rankings such as the Freeman Ratings on CalPreps.com.    (1) It's fun. Weekly rankings have been the most anticipated part of the New York State Sportswriters Association weekly newsletters from Day 1, so I understand the appeal of the computerized rankings.    People love to brag about being No. 1.    They love to debate about whether the No. 2 team should actually be on top.    Heck, they'll even argue about the merits of the No. 19 team vs. the No. 20 team to the point that they'll say nasty things about the other guy's mama.    Ratings covering 640 schools raise the volume a hundred-fold. And anything that gets us talkin' -- or arguin' -- is good because it keeps the sport top-of-mind.    (2) It's a work in progress. The numbers change from week to week and even from day to day because corrections to the database or adding previously missing scores create ripple effects throughout. It's not just who you beat and by how much, but also who the teams you've played have beaten.    And that brings us to the one genuine flaw in the Freeman Ratings. Because Long Island's public schools really are off on their own, seldom playing CHSAA, PSAL or upstate NYSPHSAA teams, they're second-class citizens in the ratings.    At this writing, the highest-ranked L.I. public school is Freeport at No. 77, followed by East Meadow at No. 86. A year ago, the highest final ranking was 172nd by William Floyd. The numbers improve only slightly if you use the version of the software		that gives margin of victory more consideration.    (3) It's volatile. This week's top five consists of St. Anthony's, Burnt Hills, Lansingburgh, Syracuse CBA and New Rochelle. It's highly likely that two or more will fall out of the top five even if all win next weekend.    The Associated Press college football poll tends to be flawed because the voting is done by writers and announcers who rarely see more than two games a week. Computers' weakness is that they only see numbers -- like final scores of 42-21 in games that were 35-0 at the half.    (4) It's flawed. Yes, the emotion has been factored out and replaced by cold, hard numbers, but the program was written by one or more human beings. And human beings make mistakes, or they simply can't account for every variable.    Last season's final Freeman Ratings were a case in point. The bottom three teams were No. 566 Friends Academy (0-8), No. 567 Jericho (1-7) and No. 568 Wyandanch (0-9).    One look at the scores tells you that Wyandanch's ranking was on merit.    Friends Academy lost four games by four TDs or more but also had some fairly narrow losses. Based on scores, it appears Jericho was really only highly competitive in the one game they won.    And that's the kicker to the story: Jericho's win was over higher-ranked Friends Academy, 27-14.    So the moral of the story is this: Devour all the rankings you can get your hands on -- whether they're scientific assessments from a computer or weekly newsletters from the NYSSWA -- but don't take any of them as gospel. The best place to settle the debate remains on the field.

Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006
Not a good idea.    That was my reaction last night when I saw what USA Today had done to the top of its scholastic football rankings.    With Hoover, Ala., having lost to the No. 11 team in the previous rankings, the national newspaper had to come up with a new No. 1 high school team.    Rather than allowing No. 2 to ascend, USA Today jumped Concord, Calif., De La Salle up from the fourth spot even though previous No. 2 Duncan, S.C., Byrnes and No. 3 Lakeland, Fla., continued their winning ways.    In fact, Byrnes was coming off a 55-17 rout of Spartanburg, S.C., and Lakeland defeated Lake Gibson, Fla., 46-7. So it's not as though they were guilty of winning nail-biters.    Rounding out the top five are Lufkin, Texas, and River Ridge, La., John Curtis, which scored the upset of Hoover by a 28-14 margin. Hoover dropped to ninth.    Not surprisingly, the message board comments were not kind to the paper or to poll editor Chris Lawlor, who grew up in the Rochester area.    And, by and large, they have a point. Why bother ranking a team No. 2 if they're not worthy of ascending to the top spot in the event of the demise of the leader? If De La Salle was that good, shouldn't that traditional California buzzsaw have been No. 2 a week ago?    In fairness, I have to point out that the New York State Sportswriters Association has been guilty of similar transgressions in the past. Most recently, we jumped Corning East		over Nyack and Bethpage late in the 2003 season after the Trojans knocked off No. 1 Victor.    In part we were stuck because we weren't about to promote Bethpage, a non-NYSPHSAA tournament team, from the No. 2 spot. But we also bypassed No. 3 Nyack that week in favor of No. 4 Corning East.    Nyack addressed the insult the following week by putting a 43-0 hurting on Corning East in the state final at the Carrier Dome, and the 16 instances since in which we've moved teams up to No. 1 have followed the more acceptable protocol of promoting the next available team.    But that's not a consideration that the South Carolina and Florida teams are likely to get this year. Assuming De La Salle runs the table -- which isn't out of the question -- neither will get a shot at the No. 1 spot because there is no playoff showdown awaiting at the end of the road. The full USA Today rankings are available online. St. Anthony's and Syracuse CBA remain ranked regionally, at Nos. 6 and 9 respectively, in the East. The fun to look at but not necessarily accurate Freeman Ratings on CalPreps.com are starting to take shape, with virtually all schools now having played enough games to be ranked.    I'll be blogging about that site's ratings in the next day or two, and here's a preview:    Churchville-Chili is a nice team, but they don't come within two TDs of St. Anthony's or Monroe-Woodbury anywhere except on somebody's Commodore 64.

Monday, Oct. 2, 2006
Kaitlin Robbins of Watertown Immaculate Heart appears to have broken the state record for career goals in girls soccer, netting No. 202 on Thursday night during a victory against Indian River.    Record books in most sports are sketchy at best, but the previous mark is believed to have been 201 by Stephanie Karst of Hinsdale from 1998 to 2003.    Robbins was a third-team all-state forward in Class B last fall.    Also tearing it up on the turf has been Helen Giroux of Chazy in Section 7. Her five goals Friday in a 7-0 win against Bolton gave her 136 for her career and added to her sectional-record points total of 319. South Jefferson girls soccer coach Terry Burgess hit the 300 career victories mark last week during a win against Sandy Creek.    Fayetteville-Manlius boys soccer coach Jeff Hammond can hit the 300 victories mark Wednesday against Utica Proctor. He stands at 299-67-23 right now. Saratoga athletic direcor Bob Stulmaker will retire early next year and move over to the N.Y. State Public High School Athletic Association. He has been in the AD role since 1995.    Stulmaker will replace Walter		Eaton Jr., who will be retiring from his role as assistant director. The Citizen's Olivia Goldberg wrote the definitive story in athletic facilities upgrades over the weekend when she updated Auburn's proposal for a $1.9 million project.    I hope for the sake of the district's student-athletes that Auburn voters do give the project the go-ahead, but I also offer a word of caution regarding the way supporters are "marketing" the proposal.    Sports facilities, whether we're talking about 2,000-seat high school stadiums or 60,000-seat domes for NFL teams, are not great economic engines. They don't create meaningful new revenue, buth rather pull money from other entertainment venues or options.    So it's nice to say that a new facility will bring events to town, thus making money for hotels and restaurants. But Central Square, Cicero-North Syracuse, Corcoran, Henninger, Liverpool, Rome, Utica and West Genesee have all done substantial upgrades in recent years and are competitors for hosting events.    Quite frankly, there are only so many football, soccer, track and lacrosse championship events to go around, so Auburn (nor any other school) can't expect to make big bucks by hosting sectional events.

Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006
What's wrong with this story? How 'bout everything.    West Virginia high school running back Paul McCoy rushed for 658 yards and scored 10 TDs Friday as Matewan High registered a 64-0 win over Burch in Delbarton, W.Va. .    McCoy had 29 carries and six of his scoring runs covered 52 or more yards. The National Federation of State High School Associations lists the U.S. scholastic record as 619 yards by Ronney Jenkins of Oxnard, Calif., in 1995.    McCoy is averaging 364 yards per game and has scored 26 touchdowns in five games this season.    It's unclear from wire-service reports how much of McCoy's work took place in the second half. But it doesn't matter. Someone needs to explain to me what this kid was still doing in the game when it was already 40-something to nothing, whether that juncture arrived midway through the second quarter or late in the fourth.    Pouring it on like that against an obviously outclassed opponent is disgusting.    Contrast that game with another played Friday in Upstate New York. Hornell sensation David Zapata ran for 301 yards and six TDs in a 48-13 win over Dansville -- all in the first		half. He didn't play in the second half. The top of the girls Class B soccer rankings will likely change this week after short-handed Marcellus lost to Westhill, 2-0, in a Section 3 matchup.    Marcellus reportedly disciplined eight players last week for an alcohol-related infraction, and the Mustangs are currently without more than half of their starting lineup, a situation that will continue for several more games, as per district policy. Congratulations to Chris Schultz for earning a rare and well-deserved opportunity.    Schultz has been hired as head hockey coach at Geneseo State, making the jump from the high school ranks at Aquinas in Rochester to a top-notch NCAA Division III program. It's rare for any high school coach to go directly into the top spot in a college program; getting the call from a school coming off of consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament is a bit more unusual.    Schultz replaces Jason Lammers, who was named an assistant at Ohio State. He was an assistant at Geneseo for three seasons earlier in the decade.    Aquinas was 54-14-3 in three seasons under Schultz and played in the 2006 finals in Utica.