Leading off today: Joe D or Ted Williams?
Chamberlain or Russell?
Nicklaus or Tiger?
Tastes great or less filling?
Yes, sir, sports fans love their debates. Make a case for your favorite as the all-time best and the guy in the chair next to you will inform you that you're all wet because so-and-so was better every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
And the best debates, of course, are the entirely theoretical battles, the ones in which the two contenders were a generation or more apart and didn't compete against each other. There may be evidence one way or the other, but it's never conclusive because they never went head-to-head.
And that's why I'm pointing out a must-read for distance running fans on the TullyRunners.com site. Bill Meylan takes a crack at the question of which squad was the all-time best in girls cross country, Fayetteville-Manlius '07 or Saratoga '04.
Meylan ends up siding with 'Toga and supports his case with impressive statistical evidence.
The kicker, of course, is that F-M will be loaded beyond belief this fall as it attempts to defend the Nike Team Nationals championship. The seven girls who ran in Portland last December are all due back, and there's additional supporting depth available to compensate for an injury (or two . . . or three, for that matter).
When all is said and done, this might be the year F-M wrestles the "greatest" title away from Saratoga.
Budget situations: Here's an update on a couple of large school districts that had their sports and extracurricular activities budgets for the upcoming school year shot down.
Wantagh boosters settled into the starting blocks staring at a $650,000 hurdle and immediately launched a series of fundraisers last month. As of Wednesday, they had pulled in an impressive $293,412. That's the good news.
The bad news is that I believe $75,000 of it is highly tainted because it came from you and me without our consent. In fact, even the Wantagh school district voters who voted down the budget — not once but twice — this spring had money pulled out of their wallets.
How could this be, you ask? Well, according to a Newsday story last month, State Sen. Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) announced a $75,000 donation from the New York State Legislature, presented by him and Assemblyman Dave McDonough (R-North Merrick).
That's right. Taxppayers in a relatively small slice of Long Island said sports and extracurricular activities weren't important enough to justify paying for them, so a couple of politicians dipped into the pork-barrel trough funded by all 20 million or so New Yorkers to help out. Granted, it works out to less than half a cent per person, but you and I are paying for something that should either be funded by Wantagh residents through their property taxes or not funded at all.
Otherwise, why bother holding elections?
Given the fact that Wantagh residents are in fact paying this secret tax alongside the rest of us after twice saying "no" in my mind guarantees that a court would rule the donation illegal.
But that won't happen, of course. No one is going to want to be the bad guy and actual file a suit.
The other large downstate district with no sports budget is Mount Vernon, home of one of the proudest and most successful basketball programs in state history. Sports Illustrated took note last week of their $950,000 problem — $300K must be raised by the end of next month.
