Leading off today: With openers for most upstate high school football teams slated for next weekend, we're happy to roll out a new feature on the New York State Sportswriters Association web site.

   Long-time NYSSWA member and contributor Steve Grandin made his debut this weekend as one of our bloggers. Though Steve's home turf is Section 2, he'll be putting his deep knowledge of all New York sports to use to write about a variety of subjects.

   His first blog entry touched on the subject of intersectional football games, and it reminded me of one of my favorite stories dating to early in my first year as the high school sports reported for the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester. I know I'm going to be off in one or two details in the yarn that follows, but the story is a true one that Ron Vitticore loved to tell about himself after it happened in September 1986.

   Clyde-Savannah's opponent for week 2 of the season had dropped football late in the summer, leaving Vitticore with little time to come up with a replacement. After working the phones long and hard, the best the Clyde-Savannah coach could do was to accept a game at Utica Proctor, which had a much larger enrollment -- by a margin of around 4-to-1 -- than the Golden Eagles.

   Well, Vitticore took his team to Utica and came home with a 24-0 victory. But the moments leading up to the opening kickoff resembled an Abbott and Costello comedy sketch. Realizing just before the game started that he had not met all of the game officials -- and not wanting to overlook any opportunity to gain as edge on the other team's field -- Vitticore walked down the sidleine toward a ref, extended his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Ron Vitticore."

   The other gent shakes hand and says, "Ron, we met."

   "No, I'm sure we haven't. I'm Ron Vitticore --"

   "Ron, we met."

   The official turns and walks away a few steps to get in position for the start of the game. By now, the Clyde-Savvanh coach is confused and a little embarrassed. A few moments later, the Golden Eagles receive the opening kickoff and return it a short distance. As the Clyde-Savannah offense runs on to the field, the public-address announcer says, "And tonight's game officials are John Smith, Bill Jackson, Joe Douglas and Ron Whemet."

   At this point, Vitticore realizes that the guy wasn't saying, "Ron, we met." He was introducing himeslf as "Ron Whemet."

   For the next two minutes, poor assistant coach John Pezzulo was trying to send plays down to Vitticore via the headset and all Vitticore could do was repeatedly say, "Oh, my God, John. His name is Ron Whemet."

   Sec. 4 realignment: The Interscholastic Athletic Conference divisional realignments reported by The Ithaca Journal over the weekend opened my eyes.

   The 18-school league in Section 4 has juggled its divisions, with Lansing jumping from Division III to Division I, Watkins Glen dropping down to Division II and Newfield going from II to III.

   The story says the move came about because Lansing has grown into one of the five biggest districts, but I think it's more about that school district not shrinking as much as some of the others. Lansing's enrollment for grades 9-11 was 342 in 2005-06, 354 last year and 339 this year.

   Considering how tiny some IAS schools are, how exactly was Lansing playing in Division III in the first place?

   National news: I missed most of the nationally televised football game between Summerville (S.C.) and Miami's Booker T. Washington, but the visitors from Florida apparently put on quite a show during their 36-3 triumph in Moncks Corner, S.C.

   BTW rolled up 473 yards of offense before 7,000 fans and an ESPN audience in a game that was delayed 67 minutes in the third quarter due to a lightning storm.

   If you're interested, most of ESPN's remaining H.S. football schedule for the season is available on the network's web site. There are no New York squads on the schedule.

   Extra points: A fall preview in Elmira's Star-Gazette stongly suggests that Elmira Heights Edison will not three-peat in girls state cross country this fall. Though Sarah Palmer is only a soph, the rest of last year's top talent has moved on. . . . If you didn't see it Sunday, the New York Daily News did a nice piece on Rutgers running back Ray Rice, the pride of New Rochelle.

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