Saturday, December 16, 2006
This has been another sad week for the New York scholastic sports scene.    With the death of Binghamton lacrosse player John Mack still fresh on our minds, word came this week of the passing of two coaches.    Monroe-Woodbury boys basketball coach Jim Taravella died Wednesday at the age of 57 two days after being hospitalized with an undetermined illness.    He had been a teacher in the district since 1973 and won a sectional basketball championship as recently as 2005. He also coached Monroe-Woodbury to a berth in the state baseball tournament finals.    Jason Blauvelt will serve as interim head coach.    One day after Taravella's death, services were held for Nyack baseball coach Dave Siegriest, who dies Sunday after fighting pancreatic cancer for more than a year. He was 46.    Several players noted Siegriest's determination to stay involved and the grace he showed while knowing he was battling one of the deadliest forms of the disease.    "He was a great guy on and off the field," football player Mark Colon told The Journal News.. "He was tough on us because he just wanted us to be better." With apologies to broadcasting icon Vince Scully, "Oh, myyyyy."    Or, in this case, "O, my."    If you didn't see the story earlier this month, Ossining is dropping its nickname because "RiverHawks" has just never been embraced by students or the community since		replacing "Indians" in 2002. Going forward, the district's teams will now be identified simply by the letter "O."    According to The Journal News, the idea for this drastic change started with senior athletes and was approved by the administration.    "There was no logo for RiverHawk and no mascot," senior three-sporter Brett Miranda told the newspaper. "We all know it's supposed to be a bird, but it also has a definition for a flower.    "The last thing you want is to be announced as the Ossining RiverHawks."    Ossining dropped "Indians" when the state education commissioner encouraged schools to stop using Native American mascots. A number of schools disregarded the request. In Section 1 alone, John Jay, Mahopac, Nyack, Roosevelt and Roy C. Ketcham all still use it. Mahopac's sports fans continue to amaze. Officials of the Mahopac Activities Coalition turned over a check for $345,667 to administration officials last week to fund the entire winter sports program for the district's athletes.    Even discounting state Sen. Vincent Leibell's $150,000 member-items nonsense, the amount raised was mind-boggling.    District residents twice rejected a school budget last spring, so the district had to adopt a contingency budget that called for the elimination of sports and extra-curricular activities. The coalition was formed and raised big bucks quickly.    The tab for the entire school year came in at just over $1 million, and now the community is two-thirds of the way there.

Monday, December 11, 2006
The Big Apple Challenge turned into a romp this weekend for the CHSAA, which won eight of nine games against the PSAL.    Boys & Girls topped Archbishop Molloy for the PSAL's only victory in the two-day event. The featured game was Christ The King's 73-66 victory over Lincoln on Sunday, sparked by 19 points and 10 rebounds from Ryan Pearson for game MVP honors. Lance Stephenson had 20 points and 15 rebounds in the loss. Keep an eye on Tywon Clark for Lehman, which is playing in the PSAL's Bronx Class AA basketball league.    The 6-foot-3 junior forward had 14 points, 15 rebounds and 14 assists Tuesday in his season debut as Lehman (1-2) beat Bronx JFK in double overtime, 79-76.    Clark is a transfer from All Hallows. The Lions also welcomed 6-foot-6 Armand Thomas to the court this season. The chunky sophomore, who attended St. Raymond's last year, has 29 rebounds through three games. For all the frustration we have in New York over the multiple football teams with claims to the large-school No. 1 ranking, it could be worse. We could be California.    Three teams with top 25 USA Today national rankings won sectional titles this weekend. Unfortunately for them, No. 1 Concord De La Salle, No. 6 Westlake Village Oaks Christian and No. 17 Orange Lutheran are among 47 sectional champions vying for just six invitations to compete in California's first state championships.    The format is North vs. South in three divisions based upon enrollment. According to my math, that's 41 champions who get left out of the state playoff process.		Quarterback John Brantley of Trinity Catholic High School in Ocala, Fla., is the Gatorade National Football Player of the Year.    Brantley, who'll reportedly sign with Texas early next year, threw for 2,766 yards and 41 touchdowns, leading Trinity (13-1) to the state Class 2B title game.    Syracuse CBA quarterback Mike Paulus was New York's Gatorade Player of the Year. Davenport girls basketball coach Ray Preston collected career victory No. 500 last week in a 51-22 victory over Margaretville.    Preston (500-135), who has taken two teams to state finals, is in his 29th season and is believed to be behind only Red Hook’s John Kuhn on the victories list. Kuhn started the season at 587 wins. Congratulations to New York's soccer All-Americans, as selected by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. All 11 are seniors: Goalkeeper Dimitri Telonis, Manlius-Pebble Hill Midfielder Steven Amaya, Martin Luther King in Bayside Midfielder Wilber Bonilla, Brentwood Midfielder Ryan Brode, St John the Baptist Midfielder Hayden Morris, Byram Hills Forward John Alberda, Commack Goalkeeper Grace Barnard, Syracuse CBA Midfielder Hannah Cerrone, Roy C. Ketcham Forward Nicole Cavallaro, New Hyde Park Forward Amanda D'Acosta, Somers Forward Brooke Knowlton, Niskayuna

Sunday, December 10, 2006
Let's keep things in perspective.    That's sensible advice for all us, whether it's me using this platform to snipe at cross country meet officials or you lobbing grenades on chat boards as a way of criticizing all-star selections.    When it comes right down to it, these crusades are insignificant. Trivial. Caraway seeds on the bun of life.    Life is what matters. We forget that sometimes, and we get jolted with reminders, in the form of death, that catch us completely off guard.    And it hurts. It drags you to lows that can more than eclipse the greatest of highs.    Surely Beth Wooters had one of those moments Saturday. The Ursuline girls basketball coach should have been celebrating a milestone as her 400th career victory came in the form of an exciting 49-48 victory against Horace Greeley.    But her tears weren't tears of joy. They were the tears of sadness that came with coping with the fact that her nephew, 24 years old, had been struck by a car and died Friday on Long Island.    The 400th victory was inevitable. We knew that based upon her outstanding track record over 23 seasons.    So, too, is death inevitable. But it comes unexpectedly, especially for the young.    And it hurts. Always.    On Thursday, the Dutchess County medical examiner concluded his investigation into the death of Mark Milano, 16.    The Spackenkill football player died at home in his sleep Oct. 7 hours after dislocating an ankle during a game against Millbrook.    The medical examiner attributed the death to a common combination of painkillers that stopped his breathing.		And now, too, we wait for word on the cause of death for John Mack.    The Binghamton High athlete died Nov. 30, two days after being checked with a stick while playing in a pickup lacrosse game.    The turnout at his funeral was immense, with many of those in attendance young men Mack, 17, played with or against on the lacrosse field. Six of his BHS teammates were pallbearers.    It's likely that more than a few of the men and women with ties to lacrosse were also on hand for memorial services for Cornell University lacrosse player George Boiardi two and a half years ago in Ithaca after his heart also stopped on the lacrosse field.    If any good does come from these deaths perhaps it will be an increase in the availablity and use of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs)    The cost and complexity of these machines made them implausible for widespread use as recently as just three or four years ago. But they now cost as little as $1,000 and are much smaller than the average bread box.    One report last week said they have been credited with saving more than 20 lives in public schools since New York mandated their availability in 1998.    The latest save may have come last weekend at Newark Valley.    Spectator John Lupo, 52, collapsed in the bleachers. Within moments, a registered nurse, an EMT and several coaches trained in first aid descended upon him.    Newark Valley Coach Eric D'Arcy retrieved the school's AED. Within moments, it was used to shock Lupo's heart back into a beating rhythm. Lupo was regaining consciousness by the time an ambulance arrived.    It was a reminder of what is important. It was a win we can all celebrate.

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006
A pair of Section 5 boys basketball coaches will be honored this weekend during the 37th annual National Conference of High School Directors of Athletics in Anaheim, Calif.    The inaugural National Spirit of Sport Award will be presented on Sunday to Jim Johnson of Greece Athena and Josh Harter of Spencerport, who were prime players in the Jason "J-Mac" McElwain episode last February.    McElwain, a high-functioning autistic team manager for Greece Athena, was added to the roster for the Trojans' regular-season finale against Spencerport and scored an amazing 20 points in less than four minutes of action.    The story received extensive national and international attention in the weeks that followed, and book and movie deals detailing the event have been signed.    More than 2,000 people are expected to attend the week-long conference, which is sponsored by the National Federation of State High School Associations and the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.    The National Spirit of Sport Award was developed jointly by the NFHS and NIAAA to recognize the values and mission of education-based athletics. The first of the season's all-state teams is now available as soccer editor Perry Novak of NYSSCOGS, our sister organization, has released its 2006 girls soccer team.    Players of the year are:		Class AA: Rochester Aquinas senior forward Erica Hender- son. Class A: Islip senior midfielder Jessica Herrmann. Class B: Highland senior for- ward Heidi Erichsen. Class C: York senior forward Lisa Skeffington. Class D: Arkport senior for- ward Megan Gee.    Gee is a repeat selection as the POY.    Coaches of the year are: Class AA: Union-Endicott's Bill Steponovsky. Class A: Victor's Rob Potter. Class B: Wheatley's Paul Paino. Class C: York's Victor Van Vliet. Class D: Arkport's Melody Hardwood. The debate over who had the best football team in the Long Island/NYC area has developed into quite a blog topic on the Newsday site over the last week.    There's some pretty passionate discussion of the merits of William Floyd (11-0), St. Anthony (11-0) and several other schools, with the NYSSWA's decision to tie Floyd with Auburn at the top of its ratings also part of the dialogue.    You'll run across the usual quota of dumb comments, but it's been mostly interestiing stuff. You come away from it with the feeling that people down there want more of a playoff structure than just CHSAA tournamnts and bowl games between Section 8 and 11 reps.

Sunday, December 3, 2006
OK, so maybe I was too hard on organizers of the NYPSHSAA cross country meet last month. It took them forever and a day to produce race results because of snafus at the finish line and in the chutes.    But at least they eventually spit out results that were accurate.    And then you have the guys at Nike Team Nationals yesterday in Portland, Ore.    The Nike meet uses computer chips in order to track runners throughout the race, generating automated standings every 1,000 meters. It's runner-friendly and fan-friendly. It creates a higher level of excitement during the course of the race because you can see the standings in nearly real time.    All the organizers need to do is get the correct chip into the hands of the correct runner before the race and then sit back and relax while technology does the rest.    Piece of cake, right?    Of course not. Something got fouled up and created a mess that rivaled the mud and muck through which runners had to navigate on the two-and-a-half loop course.    The McQuaid Invitational hand-scores twenty-something races that go off in rapid-fire fashion -- several races start while runners from the previous event are still on the course -- and still manages to get it right every time. But not the Nike guys.    We presume NTN organizers will do a post-mortem to discuss what happened, but somebody fouled up yesterday. One or more runners in the girls championship did not get the correct chip, resulting in scoring confusion right up to and beyond the awards ceremony.    Um, make that ceremonies. As in plural. Officials had to re-do the presentations, moving several teams down a notch and ultimately taking hardware away from Yankton, S.D.    Hilton's girls went from off the board to second place behind only the awesome Fayetteville-Manlius squad once Cadets coach Mike Szczepanik voiced his skepticism over the results.    It was another black eye for a meet that already has credibility problems.		It's more obvious than ever now that Saratoga, the meet winner in 2004 and runner-up to Hilton last year, deserved an at-large berth.    Hilton earned one of the at-large spots by placing second at the NYSPHSAA and Federation meets and then justified the invitation yesterday. But the other three at-large teams placed 12th, 16th and 19th yesterday.    Assuming there were no more scoring glitches, Saratoga would have almost certainly finished in the top half of the 20-team field. Instead, the Streaks were left home. As long as I'm pontificating from my high horse atop the bully pulpit, let me get this one off my chest:    The folks who like to whine about how top athletes mysteriously end up attending private schools need to explain the 2006-07 Benjamin Cardozo boys basketball roster to me.    I'm thinking "PSAL" is actually an acronymn for "Participants Show Appalling Loyalty."    Mind you, I'm not making accusations of inappropriate activity by any players, coaches or friends of the affected programs. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't look good when Chris Abney leaves Christ The King, J.J. Garvin leaves Bayside, Edy Toussaint and Trinity Fields leave Holy Cross -- and all end up at Cardozo.    They combined for 93 points and 47 rebounds in Cardozo's first two games, with Fields accounting for more than half that scoring total but everyone contributing substantially.    A TimesLedger.com story late last month pointed out that Toussaint, Fields and Abney all played together in junior high. So it's not out of the question that they would seek to re-unite in high school.    Fine. Let's just be sure not to complain when three guys from the same CYO program show up at McQuaid or a talented young football player follows his brother's footsteps to Syracuse CBA.    And, by all means, skip the tantrums when -- God forbid -- someone transfers from a public to a private school.