An emergency life-support vehicle was at the site, ESG Executive Director Fred Smith said. Schwartz was taken to Wilson Regional Medical Center in Johnson City, where he was pronounced dead.
As an aside, the Binghamton paper's story inaccurately reported that this Schwartz was the first competitor to die during ESG competition. I can't come up with the exact year, but a masters swimmer died at the ESG either in Buffalo or Syracuse in the mid-1980s.
Booted from ESG: Schwartz's death overshadowed one of the competitive low points in the 31-year-old event.
The Central open women's basketball team was kicked out of the ESG for violating the Games' code of conduct after eight players were found drinking beer in their Binghamton University dorm at about 1:30 a.m. Friday.
"They are forfeiting the rest of their games, and they've gone home," ESG Executive Director Fred Smith said.
Central had won its tournament opener Thursday, routing Long Island. Games against Western on Friday and Hudson Valley on Saturday were declared forfeits but the opening result will stand in the record books because it happened before the violation took place.
"It's happened before," Smith said. "It's an unfortunate situation. But we have strict rules and we have to enforce them."
Shifflet un-retires: Joe Shifflet, who coached high school football for 34 seasons at three schools, has been promoted from JV to varsity head coach at Williamsville East, The Buffalo News reported.
Shifflet was last a head coach at Niagara Falls in 2006. The Williamsville East varsity job opened up when Henry Fummerelle resigned after going 19-25 in five seasons.
Shifflet was 127-52-5 at Sweet Home from 1964-85, 40-14 at Tonawanda from 1995-2000 and 26-28 at Niagara Falls from 2001-06 for an overall 193-94-5 mark.
"We are so excited to have him," said Williamsville AD Jim Rusin. "Those kids are going to get a real football coach. Joe’s a pure Western Pennsylvania football coach. He’s got coaching in his genes. His enthusiasm amazes me."
