Leading off today: Newsday's Jim Baumbach wrote this morning on Long Island politician Harvey Weisenberg, who began pushing for steroids testing for high school sports 18 years ago -- long before it was an issue in just about any athletic contest that didn't involve East German women.

   Eighteen years later, the bill still hasn't passed in New York, though New Jersey began a random testing program last year for teams in state championships and Texas and Florida have begun assembling processes.

   Baumback reports Weisenberg's bill has been passed by the New York Senate numerous times and in January was sent on to the education committee with little hope of being approved.

   The column makes for an interesting read and includes a link to the Long Beach Democrat's proposed law.

   Track and field winding down: It's getting late in the season and I still don't see anything overly compelling materializing in the way of impending showdowns at the NYSPHSAA track and field championships.

   A check of Dyestat shows very light New York representation on the national leaderboards and almost nothing shaping up in the way of head-to-head battles near the top of the list.

   One possible exception is the girls' 3,000 meters, where the Division 2 race could pit juniors Caitlin Lane (9:48.75) of Greenwich and Mary Kate Champagne (9:51.18) of Seton Catholic against each other. They sit eighth and 10th respectively on the current U.S. list.

   St. Anthony's shot-putter Walter Henning continues to hold the No. 2 U.S. mark this spring in the shot put at 68-11 3/4, and Chaminade senior Ryan McDermott's 9:08.11 last weekend at the CHSAA meet actually leads the steeplechase list. But there have been no other sizzling marks by New Yorkers other than South Shore's

:41.05 one-lap relay and Brian Rhodes-Devey's mile.

   Among the girls, juniors Nadonnia Rodriguez (400 meters, :53.92) of Boys and Girls and Kristin Reese (800 meters, 2:09.24) of Carmel are in the top 10s of their respective events.

   New hire at MSIT: Mike Scotti, an assistant on former football coach Greg Rocco's staff, has accepted the top coaching position at McKee/Staten Island Tech.

   Rocco left in January to take the head coaching position at Moore Catholic. Scotti, 23, played quarterback at Monsignor Farrell and is a math teacher at McKee.

   End of an era in Greece: Jeff DiVeronica did a nice feature today in the Democrat and Chronicle on Megan Shoniker, a three-sport star who has played 280 varsity games in six varsity years for Greece Arcadia.

   The era of specialization killed off the concept of three-sporters in boys athletics at most schools 10 to 15 years ago, and the number of genuine three-sport girls stars has also been dwindling. Even Shoniker, who is one of those rare types who would probably be very good very quickly in any sport she tried, wasn't a classic three-sporter since she only had one season of varsity soccer under her belt.

   Extra points: New York City Councilman Jim Oddo has lined up $35,000 to pay for a survey of Staten Island Tech's outdoor athletic facilities that will prototype a possible renovation and its cost. The Advance reports that Oddo said an initial estimate for the facility upgrade is $5 million. He also came up with $35,000 in December for a similar study of Susan Wagner's crumbling facilities. While I generally dislike government spending on school-related sports outside the traditional school budget, Oddo's initiative is sensible because it puts in motion planning improvements that could benefit the school and community for 20 or more years.

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