Leading off today: Joe Whelan of Hamburg made an impressive return to the distance-running circuit over the weekend.

   Whelan broke a foot at the Section 6 cross country meet in November, costing him the entire indoor season. Competing in the ninth annual Early Bird Invitational at Cheektowaga JFK, he broke his meet record with a time of 9:37.86 in the 3,200 meters.

   "I was depressed when I wasn’t running and this really helped to get my momentum back," Whelan told The Buffalo News. "There was no pain at all."

   Ryan Pericozzi of Lancaster also broke a meet record by clearing 14-7 in the pole vault.

   Both rank highly on the debut of the track leaderboard that we're going to try to maintain throughout the spring.

   Also back in action: Newsday's Steve Marcus did a story this morning on William "Doc" Dougherty, dismissed after 33 years and 565 wins as Garden City's boys lacrosse coach and now directing action on the sideline at Lawrence.

   You may not be interested in lacrosse, but you've got to admit that Marcus' lead makes you want to read more:

   "He is both legendary and notorious. William 'Doc' Dougherty has been emboldened by success, yet disconnected with the school he made synonymous with lacrosse supremacy in Nassau County."

   Marcus makes a good effort to delve into the reasons behind Dougherty's departure after the 2006 season. But Garden City officials weren't talking, so it was left to the coach to fill in some of the details, including a 2006 dispute with a neighbor that led to a fine and and an order of protection.

   Exposing talent or getting exposed: HoopGurlz.com columnist Clay Kallam made an interesting point in his recent post regarding the summer camp and AAU circuit. We think of those venues as opportunities for players to attract the attention of college coaches, but sometimes players get noticed for the wrong reasons.

   Here are the key words from Kallam's piece:

   "Sure, exposure is nice, but even if a college coach happens to stumble across a national tournament game with younger kids, what she’s going to notice isn’t the athletic dominance of the better athletes – that’s expected. What she’s going to look for are fundamentals: Can the girl go both ways? Can she finish with her weak hand? Does she defend? Does she have good form on her jumper?

   "The young player who always goes right, can’t make a lefthanded layup and has an outside shot that looks like it was put together with spare parts from a ’65 VW may be scoring all the points and getting all the rebounds, but one other thing is happening too: She’s getting exposed."

   Kallam isn't saying that there shouldn't be any summer tournaments. He's advocating for more quality prctice time and greater emphasis on developing the skills that will be used later in game action. Interesting point, though, about how players who aren't ready for the next level at the moment could be hurting their odds of ever getting there.

   Big efforts: While newspapers are putting lots of time and energy into their Web sites these days, it's always nice to see work in print that goes above and beyond. I saw a pair of special sections that fit that description this week:

The Buffalo News did a six-page presentation of its All-Western New York boys and girls basketball teams on Saturday. It's definitely a keeper, not only for the 40 honored players but for basketball fans as well.

The Times Union in Albany took it a step farther on Friday with an eight-page section honoring its all-area teams in all of the winter sports.

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