Leading off today: Will somebody please do something about Ed Bemiss? He's making it very difficult for me to get any work done.

   I'll be sitting at my desk, plugging away feverishly at organizing my bank records or updating some of the NewYorkSportswriters.org reference material, and out of nowhere an e-mail with Ed's name on it will pop into my in box.

   I try my hardest to ignore it, but I quickly give in to temptation and open it. Without fail, it includes a link to the latest version of his pet project -- an imaginative and fascinating computer simulation matching up high school football teams of the past.

   What started last fall as a "let's kick the tires on the 2006 season by creating power rankings similar to college basketball's RPI ratings index" examination of high school football is now an encyclopedia-sized database of minutiae that will allow visitors to conduct up to a 64-team tournament simulations to crown football champions. The database goes back as far as 1955 and allows users to match up teams from different states and different years.

   He's incorporated information on 35,000 teams into the simulation thus far and continues to seek even more data.

   The more "primitive" version of the software, offering simple head-to-head matchups remains available, but

it's the tournament capability that has me captivated for now.

   To the dismay of many, the New York State Sportswriters Association ranked Auburn (10-3) and William Floyd (11-0) in a tie for No. 1 in Class AA last fall and left St. Anthony's (No. 3, 11-0) and Fort Hamilton (No. 5, 13-0) on the outside looking in.

   Unable to resist temptation, I used the online tool to play (and replay) a tournament involving the four teams. St. Anthony's was the runaway winner, with the other three in a close battle for second.

   A change at Lew-Port: Brian Gunby is not back for a fourth season as the football coach at Lewiston-Porter. Nether Gunby nor AD Scott Townsend returned calls from the Niagara Gazette seeking comment, but assistant Dick Lindamer, 39, was serving as the interim head coach Monday and is expected to remain in the top spot this fall.

   Lindamer has been an assistant coach for the past six years at Lew-Port. He also spent seven seasons as an assistant at Ellicottville.

   Sources told the newspaper that the decision was a shock, as Gunby was seen re-certifying his CPR/AED training at the school last week. Gunby was 10-16 in his three seasons.

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