To the many sports parents who dream of sending their star athletes to college on full athletic scholarships, think again, says Seth Tierney, head men’s lacrosse coach at Hofstra University in Hempstead. more

The Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, the Bellmore-Merrick Community Parent Center and Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg will present a program about the college athletic recruiting process, “Does Your Child Dream of Playing Sports in College?” The event will take place on Thursday, Jan. 26, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at the Brookside School, 1260 Meadowbrook Road in North Merrick. more

They’re called “pharm parties,” short for pharmacy parties. A group of teenagers –– perhaps as young as 12 and 13 years old –– methodically swipe opiate-based pain killers like Oxycontin and Oxycodone from their parents’ and grandparents’ medicine cabinets, dump the pills into a big bowl when no adult is looking and take turns rolling a die. Whatever number comes up, that’s the number of pills a teen must ingest. more

For decades, public health officials have hammered home a message –– smoking kills. They have done so in splashy advertising campaigns and in the halls of government. Any number of laws and … more

For decades, public health officials have hammered home a message –– smoking kills. They have done so in splashy advertising campaigns and in the halls of government. Any number of laws and ordinances prohibiting smoking in public venues have been passed as a result. These efforts, officials say, have paid dividends. more

Since elementary school, lifelong New Hyde Park resident Linda Opyr, 58, has been devoted to poetry, and that dedication recently paid off. On June 12, Opyr was named poet laureate of Nassau … more

Thirty-eight years after Joe Corea began his four-decade career as Calhoun High School's head baseball coach, he can still rattle off most of the names on his starting lineup from his very first year -–– 1972. more

A cold drizzle fell as the short, yellow school bus from the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District pulled up last Wednesday to Kennedy Airport's Hagar 17, the 80,000-square-foot storehouse for the remains of what once were the two tallest buildings in the world. more

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