football

 There is a rumor that has been circulating on the net and word of mouth that Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson died last night.

It is not true.

The 90-year old Hall of Famer is still alive and the Bills confirmed this with a Twitter post saying "There is absolutely no truth to the internet rumor referencing Ralph Wilson’s health."

If Wilson were to have passed away last night, it would leave the future of football in Buffalo in question. If Wilson cares about keeping football in Buffalo, it is time that he sells the team or sets something up where nobody can purchase the team from his family if they plan on moving the team out of Western New York.

 With Terrell Owens joining the Buffalo Bills this week, it is time for fans to update their jersey collection.

The team announced on its Web site that Owens jerseys are available for $80.  You will receive the jersey 3-4 weeks after Owens picks a number.

Owens, a controversial player, inked a 1-year contract on Saturday after being released by the Dallas Cowboys.

The Buffalo Bills are making it very clear as to what is going to be priority come draft day, announcing Thursday that the team will be releasing left guard Derrick Dockery and tight end Robert Royal.

Dockery signed a seven year, $49 million contract two years ago and has never lived up to the potential the team saw in him. Royal had some decent games last season but is not considered a true starting tight end by the Bills. He has two years left on his contract.

 “These business decisions are never easy,” Bills COO Russ Brandon told buffalobills.com. “Especially when you are talking about two great individuals in both Derrick and Robert. We thank them for their hard work and dedication in their time as Buffalo Bills and wish them the best of luck in the future.”

 The moves are expected to free up $8 million in cap space, but the team is likely to fill these positions in the draft rather than shell out big bucks for a weak free agent class at the positions.

Pittsburgh's Chris Kemoeatu and Brandon Moore are the top free agent guards on the market and neither is a player that a line can be built around. With fellow lineman Melvin Fowler, Duke Preston and Jason Whittle all expected to test free agency for the Bills, one or two lineman could be taken on the first day of the draft.

Buffalo has no viable option at tight end right now and should also address this early in the draft, with the position boasting one of the strongest draft classes in years.

 With Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch in more legal troubles and facing a suspension by the National Football League, the team is looking for another option to help out Fred Jackson while Lynch is on break.

The Bills are visiting with Fred Taylor today, and it seems like a great option that will not involve a long-term commitment.

Taylor is an 11-year veteran and 33 years old, so Buffalo will probably be looking to give him a one or two year deal. This would be a great move because it gives the team a chance to see if Lynch is going to clean up his act or if they have to move on.

Taylor can be a stop-gap.

He rushed for 11,271 yards with the Jacksonville Jaguars before the Jags released the NFL's 16th all-time leading rusher. And he's healthy and fresh after getting under 150 carries last season because Maurice Jones-Drew became more of a feature back.

Taylor is a strong and fast runner, even at his advanced age, and is also being targeted by the New England Patriots in free agency.

Signing Taylor would give the Bills three capable backs - when Lynch returns from suspension - and would allow a unique rotation that could maximize Jackson's speed and pass catching ability.

It would also allow Buffalo to focus on addressing more pressing needs in the draft, like guard, outside linebacker and tight end. Having to use an early draft pick to get an insurance policy for Lynch would take away from fixing weaker spots on the roster.

UPDATE: Taylor's visit today went very well, according to buffalobills.com lead journalist Chris Brown.

“My job is to come in and be a helper, not to stir up any problems or things like that,” said Taylor while making his free agent visit to One Bills Drive Tuesday.

This is good news for Buffalo fans who have to worry about Lynch and his future with the team.

 The Buffalo Bills have always claimed to only keep players on the roster that are good people off the field as well as on. Owner Ralph Wilson does not like his players making news for non-football issues.

But one of the faces of the franchise has become a problem.

Running back Marshawn Lynch was arrested over the weekend for possession of a concealed firearm in California last week, making two straight offseasons where he has been in trouble with the law.

Lynch and two other men were in a 2006 Mercedes Benz when they were pulled over and officers found a loaded gun, which belonged to the back that just a week ago was playing in the Pro Bowl.

Lynch was arrested last June when he was involved in a hit-and-run accident on Chippewa Street in Buffalo. He did not turn himself in right away and it took four days before his lawyer contacted the police.

He also made the news as a college student at California when he was the target of a drive-by shooting, which the police eventually said was a case of mistaken identity. There were "character issues"  when the Bills drafted him in the first round of the 2007 draft.

After Willis McGahee was run out of town for negative remarks about the City of Buffalo, Lynch was drafted and has been a decent player on the field in his first two seasons. He rushed for 1,115 yards and seven touchdowns as a rookie and followed that up this past season with 1,036 yards and eight scores. He was an alternate and was added to the Pro Bowl this year.

His numbers are good, but he has not jumped into an "elite" status in the NFL by any stretch of the imagination.

The Buffalo Bills will be asking themselves this offseason if it is worth keeping a player around that makes as much news off the field as on. Lynch will definitely be suspended for some of this upcoming season for violating the league's code of conduct policy, and with his track record there is no assurance that he will not get into trouble with the law again.

The team isn't saying much at this point.

"We can confirm that Marshawn was arrested in California and has retained an attorney," Bills vice president of communications Scott Berchtold said in a statement. "We are in the process of trying to gather the facts and will not offer a comment while that process is ongoing."

Buffalo came into last season with questions about depth in the backfield, but Fred Jackson did a great job last season and some might argue was a more exciting player on the field than Lynch.

Lynch will not be released or traded before the season starts and will probably get another chance with the Bills, but his future is without question in doubt after this latest mishap. The team will probably be focusing on drafting an offensive guard and an outside linebacker early in the upcoming draft, but it might be worth using a pick in rounds 3-5 on a running back. There are always highly ranked players that slip (like Mike Hart to the Indianapolis Colts in the sixth round last season). 

Lynch is young and has talent, but is he the future of the Buffalo Bills? If the past and philosophy of the team is any indication, he will be on a short leash until he proves himself.

 The Buffalo News today reported a story in which reporter Maki Becker gives us some more detail on the New York State Public High School Athletic Association cuts as he interviewed executive director Nina Van Erk.

There wasn't a whole lot of information than what we have previously reported, but there are a couple of interesting items in the piece.

Van Erk says that it is expected that the cuts will save schools in the state up to $10 million, with nearly $6 million of that going to officiating fees.

The other thing that comes from this story is that the cuts are expected to be for two years.

The changes, which were approved by a slim majority late last month, would begin in the next school year and would remain in effect for two years, Van Erk told the paper.

This opens up some more questions.

Did Van Erk and the rest of the NYSPHSAA directors make these cuts for two years because it is a quick fix to help schools and families get through these difficult economic times?

Was it announced that the cuts are for two years because that is the original plan or because of all the backlash the NYSPHSAA has received from coaches and athletic directors?

And what happens after two years? Will these policies just continue or will they be reviewed again at that time, with the number of games being returned to the schedule?

Buffalo Public Schools athletic director David Thomas summed up what a lot of people are thinking when they hear this with his quote late in the story.

“I don’t think we should be worried about funding school budgets on the backs of the kids playing sports,” said Thomas told the paper.

Cutting the number of games might help school districts in the more remote areas of Western New York that require longer traveling distances, Thomas said, “but it doesn’t save it up here [in Buffalo], where we are trying to keep the kids off the streets and busy with school and athletics.”

The current schedule allows Buffalo athletes the opportunity to play in suburban areas and “to travel to some nice tournaments,” Thomas said. “Now we have to pull back on that.”

Thomas also questioned whether the cuts were really temporary. “When they take things away,” he said, “they don’t often come back.”

 National signing day was two days ago and all day on ESPN there were constant updates as to which star high school player was going to which big-time Division I school.

There are always talks about which local players have a shot to get a D-1 scholarship and when this talk is going on, nobody realizes how rare it is for a player from this area to get the big ticket.

There have been some football players from Section 5 that have received Division I scholarships, usually to the University at Buffalo. The biggest names locally that played this past season were Pembroke's Chris Lauzze (Buffalo), Pittsford Sutherland's C.J. Lee (Michigan), Hornell's, David Zapata (Navy), Churchville-Chili's Averin Collier (Syracuse) and Albion's Derek Kinder (Pittsburgh).

That is actually a pretty high number of local players that are in D-1 because most of the big-time high school recruits come out of states like Texas, Florida and California, where they can play year-round.

So you may ask yourself how many Section 5 football players signed Division I scholarships on national signing day. The answer would be zero.

This is the complete list of players from New York signing scholarships to play big-time college football next season, according to NYSSWA president John Moriello: 

• Oday Aboushi, OL, Xaverian (Virginia)

• Jamie Boyle, K, Monroe-Woodbury (Central Florida)

• Andrew Civil, DE, Sheepshead Bay (Rutgers)

• Fernando Diaz, OG, Cardinal Hayes (Pitt)

• Curtis Dukes, RB, Indian River (Penn State)

• Delano Fabor, CB, St. Francis (Buffalo)

• Nick Ferrara, K, St. Anthony's (Maryland)

• Jimmy Gordon, TE, Patchogue-Medford (Buffalo)

• Ben Jebb, DL, Cornwall (Army)

• Robert Joseph, FB, Poly Prep (Rutgers)

• Bunduka Kargbo, S, Bishop Maginn (Buffalo)

• Rob Lombardo, FB, Somers (Navy)

• Alex Neutz, WR, Grand Island (Buffalo)

• Stephen Obeng-Agyapong, S, Bronx JFK (Penn State)

• Andy Phillips, OL, Syracuse CBA (Syracuse)

• Torian Phillips, CB, Port Richmond (Syracuse)

• Dillon Quinn, DT, Trinity Pawling (Boston College)

• Shayne Skov, LB, Trinity Pawling (Stanford)

• Shamar Stephen, OG, Long Island Lutheran (Connecticut)

• Najee Tyler, QB, Xaverian (Purdue)

• John Urschel, DL, Canisius (Penn State)

• Jamal Wilson, OT, South Shore (Rutgers)

• Pat Wilson, OT, Canisius (Buffalo)

Most of these players are coming from big high schools from around the state - with none from Section 5 - and five of the 23 have signed at the University at Buffalo.

 Cheerleading coaches have been saying for years that their sport is a contact sport and it has been proven to be one of the more dangerous sports in the past.

But the Wisconsin Supreme Court made a ruling this week on a case where a cheerleader was dropped while attempting a stunt in 2004.

She filed a lawsuit against the cheerleader that dropped her, causing a serious head injury.  The District Court ruled cheerleading was not a contact sport and ruled in favor of the cheerleader that was dropped.

The reasoning was that the competing teams do not have contact with each other.

So then it went to the Supreme Court and was overturned, making it a contact sport. That means that cheerleading is the same in Wisconsin as sports like football and basketball, where an athlete cannot sue another a member of your own team that causes a mistake that leads to an injury.

Many people disregard cheerleading as a sport, but with this decision many states could look to do the same, including New York. The Section 5 championships are on Feb. 22.

High school cheerleading is a contact sport and therefore its participants cannot be sued for accidentally causing injuries, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a case being closely watched in the cheerleading world.

The court ruled that a former high school cheerleader cannot sue a teammate who failed to stop her fall while she was practicing a stunt. The court also said the injured cheerleader cannot sue her school district.

The National Cheer Safety Foundation said the decision is the first of its kind in the nation.

You can read the full Associated Press story here.

 I've talked with many coaches through the years about how they must keep players hydrated during the preseason practices when the weather is still very hot and the kids are in pads.

Luckily, we have had no serious incidents that I have heard of around here. That is a real credit to the coaches that make sure to give the kids enough breaks for water and Gatorade, and they don't work them too hard on days that are extremely hot. 

Strangely enough I was watching a rerun of  "Six Feet Under", a great series that was on HBO. It was the second episode from the second season, and it was about a player that died at a hot football practice.

Then today I find a brief on the Buffalo News about a coach in Kentucky that is being charged with reckless homicide after the death of a player.

There are players that end up in the hospital all over the country and we are lucky that we have such responsible coaches in the area.

Here is the brief.

A Kentucky high school football coach was charged with reckless homicide in the death of a player who collapsed during a sweltering practice in a rare criminal case against a coach in a heat death.

A grand jury indicted David Jason Stinson in the death of Pleasure Ridge Park offensive lineman Max Gilpin. Stinson, in his first year as head coach at the Louisville school, was directing practice Aug. 20 when the heat index reached 94 degrees and the 15-year-old sophomore collapsed and had trouble breathing.

The reckless homicide charge means grand jurors didn’t find that Stinson’s actions were intentional or malicious, said Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Stengel,but that “a reasonable man should have realized something like this could have occurred.”

 John Moriello has official sources that says the upcoming football season will be shortened, as part of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association's upcoming cuts.

In previous years there was seven regular season games, three sectional games, and three state games. That would give a state champion 13 games in a season. Moriello writes that a state champion would only get 12. But I don't get what the new format is going to be. Hopefully that will come out in the next few days.

Here's what Moriello wrote in his blog yesterday.

 Two upstate sources involved in the scheduling process have told me that it's considered a certainty that the maximum length of the varsity football season will be scaled back to 12 games (nine within the section and three in the state tournament) as part of the NYSPHSAA's cost-cutting initiative in light of the state's budget problems.

   Speculation is all over the board on the effect on JV and modified/freshmen schedules, but it appears that reports that teams at those levels will be told to trim two games may not be accurate. They'll almost certanly be told to drop one game, but the proposed two-game reductions apparently were intended for sports with 18- to 24-game seasons like soccer, basketball and lacrosse.

   By the way, the NYSPHSAA football tournament is locked into Thanksgiving weekend dates at the Carrier Dome, so a reduction in the varsity schedule would translate into a Sept. 11-12 start to the season. It was just two years ago that some squads opened on Aug. 31.

The NYSPHSAA will be meeting tomorrow and I am hoping to find out more details on cuts in other sports.

There aren't any locals, but Section 5 has announced 12 new members for the class of 2009.

Three of those players went on to play in the National Football League.

East High's Roland Williams was a tight end on the 1999 Super Bowl winning St. Louis Rams and spent eight seasons in the NFL. The Syracuse grad caught 114 passes for 1004 yards and 13 touchdowns in his career.

Webster grad Brian Kozlowski and Victor grad Seth Payne also played in the NFL. 

McQuaid's Chuck Schott, Wellsville's Glenn Law and Greece Olympia's Adam Rodger are the other players inducted into the HOF.

Anthony Bianchi won two state titles at Webster and Bolivar's Bob Dunsmore are being inducted as coaches..

Tom Dowd, Mike Stackus and Charlie Remilen are football officials being elected. Also Ontario Honda president Daniel Richards is being inducted as a contributor. 

The Hall of Fame dinner and election ceremony is at the RIT Inn & Conference Center on April 2 and ticekts are $35 per person or $300 for a table.

For the past few years, I've heard how the officiating keeps getting worse; and it doesn't matter which sport it is.

According to the National Association of Sports Officials, the amount of high school officials is dropping at a rapid pace. This means there are many inexperienced officials doing games. Consider half of the varsity basketball team quitting and half the jayvee team being called up to replace them. 

The reason more than 3/4 of the NASO lists for the decline in officials is "poor sportsmanship by spectators".

John Moriello of the NYSSWA writes about an incident at a game between Schuylerville and Mohonasen in late December.

At a basketball game between Schuylerville and Mohonasen on Dec. 26, spectators became so unruly that the gym had to be cleared. It was a girls game . . . a JV girls game.

   "Parents have invested their whole freaking past, present and future in little Johnny going to Syracuse on a scholarship and, oh gosh, the ref made a bad call," Will Keim, co-author of "Fan Etiquette: How did the burning desire to win become the desire to burn?" said. "This ref is keeping their kid out of the NBA."

The basic lesson here is that if you are not liking what you see on the field or court, leave the officials alone and let them do their job. The more that quit, the less experienced officials we are going to get.

Almost two years ago, Section 5 Basketball officially closed a small message board on its Web site.

So a small group of die-hard local sports fans - including myself - created a forum site, so that local sports fans can talk about their sport of choice. That site was named Section 5 Talksback.

The hits grew and grew and the registered members kept coming. The site hit a milestone this morning as member No. 2,000 registered. 

That member is local, using the screen name leroyfootball00.

Local sports fans know that The Batavian and Talksback are the only two real sources to get the in-depth information you won't get by traditional media, like television stations and the newspaper.

Talksback is also having a big contest where local fans can win a free pizza party.  So local fans should get their video camera out and show how good local basketball cheering sections are.

 Mike Humphrey and Travis Fenstermaker from Le Roy, Chris Williams and Tim Smith from Oakfield-Alabama and Shawn Dupuis from Attica all made all-state from our area, but there is a lot of debate going on on Section 5 Talksback. Just in case you are interested in jumping in on the conversation on players you think should have made it.

Here is the thread for Class B.

Here is the thread for Class C.

Here is the thread for Class D.