Saul Lerner, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District athletic director, recently resigned his post as coordinator of the Nassau County Boys' Basketball Committee because, he said, the Section VIII Athletic Council rejected a proposal of his to fine-tune the seeding process that ultimately determines teams' playing schedules. In 2006, Lerner was the architect of an ability-grouping system that determined a team's conference by its record. Previously, teams were assigned to conferences without much regard to their records. Rather, officials used what they called the "snake," in which teams were seeded and then laid out on a grid that wound back and forth in serpentine fashion. more

Only 6 months old, Sophia Gaynor of Bellmore is bringing out the best in hundreds of local high school students. Around 300 people turned out at Mepham High School's track on Oct. 22 to take a part in a walk-a-thon to benefit the charitable organization, Sophia's Cure. The organization is named for a local newborn who was diagnosed with fatal spinal muscular atrophy, a group of diseases that affect the motor neurons of the spinal cord and brain stem. more

I’d like to devote my 750 words this week to shamelessly promoting two books by a former colleague and good friend, Michael Otterman. They are “American Torture” (Melbourne University Publishing, 2007) and “Erasing Iraq: The Human Cost of Carnage,” to be published in 2010. more

Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools all celebrated Homecoming on Saturday, and students had a blast at the pre-game parades and at the big football games, despite all three home teams losing. Calhoun went down to Massapequa, 24-20. Kennedy lost a heartbreaker to Division, 21-20, after being up 20-0 at halftime. And Mepham was overpowered by No. 4 seed Wantagh, 30-7. more

Thursday marks the official start of the Nassau County high school season, and it’s only the beginning of weekday action. more

Tom Leavy's stop watch read 1:49 as the pack of girls approached, running at breakneck pace on Calhoun High School's brick-red track on a recent Friday morning. "One fifty-eight, Alex!" shouted Leavy, the Calhoun girls' cross-country coach. "That's a good pace. 2:06, 2:14, 2:15. That's it, Emily. Attagirl." Leavy, who started Calhoun's girls' cross-country team in 1974, is celebrating nearly half a century in coaching this season. As the girls rounded the corner, pulling away into the distance, he commented, "The girls who ran all summer, that's showing, and the girls who didn't run, that's showing, too." No matter whether his runners finish first or last around the track, Leavy has a kind word, a smile and often a joke for them. And that, team members say, goes a long way toward explaining his continued success as a cross-country and track coach. Last fall, the cross-country team, with 30 members, finished second in its conference. This year, the runners say, they're shooting for first. Led by Ava Fitzgerald, a junior who qualified for the state meet in her freshman and sophomore years (she placed 22nd at the Section 8 state qualifier last November), the team has high hopes in 2009. more

An ad hoc group of students and high school parents converged on the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District Board of Education meeting Sept. 2 to call on district officials to reconsider their 2007 stance against synthetic-turf football fields at Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools. Roughly 250 parents and their children attended, with young people donning Merrick Police Activity League, Merrick-North Merrick Little League, Bellmore Braves and Calhoun football jerseys. In response to recent calls for artificial turf, Board of Education President Diane Seaman announced at the meeting that the district was forming a committee to explore ways to improve the high schools' football fields. She noted that the committee would look not only at synthetic turf, but also at ways to upgrade maintenance of the current grass fields. more