Washington could not be immediately reached for comment today, FiveBoroSports.com reported. A source said Woody Souffrant, a certified teacher and the school's junior varsity girls' basketball coach, has been on the bench all season. A team only needs one of its coaches to be certified.
"When they do their research and their homework, they’ll find all that out," the source said.
Jefferson hosts unbeaten South Shore on Thursday in a key PSAL game.
Osburn in charge at Albion: Tony Osburn is the new football coach at Albion, replacing the retired Dick Diminuco, The Buffalo News reported. Osburn, 33, quarterbacked the Purple Eagles in 1991-92, graduated from Cortland State and moved back to Albion in 2003 to teach social studies and coach the junior varsity.
“He’s a good, young man,” said Diminuco, who'll step down as AD later this year. "He’s the next guy in line. It wasn’t a big secret to anyone. I knew he was ready. He’s a football guy who has a passion.”
Swimming and softball coach Randy Knaak will take over as AD.
Will what once was be again? In Rochester, Time-Warner RNews sports director and Messenger Post columnist Bill Pucko is expecting budget issues to take a toll on sports programs when voting takes place this spring.
"Sports will be targeted and some community somewhere in Section 5 will cut their programs loose," he wrote. "It happened in far less stressful times."
Pucko retells the story of what happened in Elba in 2004 when, faced with a 24 percent tax increase, the school board made a blanket 20 percent cut to non-mandated costs in the proposed budget. The contingency budget did not include funding for sports beyond the fall season, so the community had to raise $90,000 to salvage the winter and spring sports.
It was a crisis on a much smaller scale than what Mount Vernon and Wantagh experienced this school year, but it's a scenario likely to be faced by any number of districts in the future.
According to Pucko, funding was restored in susbsequent budgets, but the Elba boosters have continued to raise money in some interesting ways.
