Racquet Club.
"He taught you that you were never bigger than the game, and that element was always there in his teams," Saratoga Springs girls coach Rich Johns told The Post-Star. "He was a very quiet gentleman, but he could be very stern, too, if you ever crossed the line on respect. But he was always encouraging."
Quickly: A few brief thoughts regarding topics in the news this week:
(1) It's nice to see University at Buffalo coach Turner Gill's name making the "long" list as a candidate to replace embattled Bill Callahan at Nebraska, but such a quick move into big-time football isn't going to happen for the former Cornhuskers great. Gill is making progress at UB, but let's not get too giddy about a 3-4 record, because the Bulls are still candidates to lose by two TDs to an awful Syracuse team.
Gill's turn will come, but Nebraska's safe choice if Callahan gets sacked is
LSU defensive coordinator Bo Pelini.
(2) Gannett bought HighSchoolSports.net this week for an undisclosed sum. It's not a spectacular site, but it reportedly has coaches or ADs from 6,500 U.S. schools supplying schedules and scores and does have some potential if management puts some careful thought into building out what already exists.
It's the latest of several recent moves in the industry. Over the summer, Active Network bought LaxPower.com on the heels of Yahoo's $100 million acquisition of Rivals.com. Sports Illustrated increased its stake in takkle.com earlier this summer, and CBS bought Maxpreps.com outright.
Additionally, Hearst-Argyle Television launched "High School Playbook" -- think of it as Facebook meets ESPN -- for its TV stations and plans to license it to other markets by next year. Fox-owned stations developed their own "FoxHilites" initiative earlier this year.
In case anyone's interested, bidding on NewYorkSportswriters.org starts at $750,000. Or lifwtime season tickets to New York Giants games. Whatever.
(3) James Allen of The Times-Union in Albany wrote about the Lansingburgh eligibility case this morning and rightfully wondered why it took more than a week to get the situation resolved.
His most important observation, however, was in the third-from last paragraph:
"The source of the complaint against Lansingburgh obviously brought this up so late in the season as a way to hurt Nyquan McGirt and the rest of the Knights," he wrote.
Bingo.
Extra points: TullyRunners.com pulled out its chainsaw and whacked results from the Manhattan Invitaional from its speed ratings database. TullyRunners cited numerous reports of inaccurate results, which has been a chronic problem in recent years. That meet is simply too large for its own good. . . . The bloodletting has begun in Hoover, Ala., where the school board accepted the resignation of assistant principal Carol Martin, who was named in an investigation for her role in grade changes of star football players.
