That says volumes about (a) how much work there is being a district staff person (lots) and (b) what a lazy bum I’ve been regarding RodFrisco.com.  Shame on me.

Regardless, the wrestling rules for the upcoming season can be accessed here.  I like ‘em, especially the lead rule regarding stalling, although banning the wristbands and what-not seems a little commie to me.  The thing missing from the stalling rules changes is the usual: Call it more often.

I will be posting a little more frequently now that the spring postseason is here – yes, tennis counts – and I’m well aware that the site needs some major work, especially getting the records links functional.

I’ll get it done, but God only knows when.  After all, I get to spend five of the next six days at the Hershey Racquet Club updating District 3 tennis.

It’s what I do.

Below are the performance lists for the 24th Annual Pan-Ram Track and Field Invitational on Saturday at Central Dauphin School District’s Landis Field, forwarded to me by CD cross-country coach Rick Leuschner, a very fine man.  I always enjoyed covering the Pan-Ram (well, when it wasn’t 45 degrees and raining, which happened more than once at the P-R) because the folks running it were always such a hoot.  They were always blasting me for huddling under a tent as opposed to, say, actually going out and covering the meet.

I always pointed out that despite my awful vision, I could see the finish line just fine.  And as a scholastic sports sage pointed out to me years ago in regards to track: “You shoot the gun, the fastest guy wins.”  Not a whole lot to argue there.   As a sprinter once told me when I was trying to pry out some deep strategy re the start, the famous “second gear” in mid-race, whatever, “Um, I just run as fast as I can.”

Case closed.  (Same sage as above also told me, long story short, that he couldn’t stand track because “they can teach a bleeping dog how to run around a circle.”  Nearly pooped my pants.)

Besides, I was always faking it when it came to field events, especially the triple jump (Fave TJ question: “So, how’s your second phase going?”).  Which reminds me: why did they rename the broad jump, anyway?

But the bottom line is that I generally enjoyed covering track despite my considerable lack of knowledge, mostly because the people – officials and athletes – were great, although sometimes that didn’t make up for 7 hours in the wind and cold (not that I made it to a whole lot of 100-meter and high hurdles prelims).

Whoa, got a little breezy myself.  Anyhow, here are the Pan-Ram performance lists:

PAN-RAM 2012

Enjoy.

Me?  I hate April.

The only sporting events in April that are worth a damn are the NCAA Final Fours in hoops and the Frozen Four in NCAA hockey.  That’s it.  And they’re done so quickly that you’re left dealing with howling winds and crab grass.

Don’t tell me about the Boston Marathon, the opening of Major League Baseball, the early round of the NHL Playoffs and for damn sure the NFL Draft.  When did that thing – the draft – become a media event?  Actually, I know when it did: When the four-letter network became full of crap. (Everyone agrees that ESPN is full of crap.  The only argument is pinpointing the exact day it happened.  I submit for your consideration the first day that Stuart Scott uttered “Boo-Yah”.)

And for purebred high school guys like me, April is just an abomination.  There are no championship events in April, and when you think about it, that makes April a rare bird.  High school sports in Pennsylvania begin in August and end in June.   The only months that have no district or PIAA championship events are August, September, January and April.  July is vacation, and vacation trumps everything else.

August and September don’t count.  First, August is practice and run-up to the start of the season.  August is all about re-catching the fever.  Plus the missus usually busts out the swimsuits in North Carolina.  So August is cool.

September?  Anyone with a pulse and a brain (better with both) is cranked about regular-season football, be it high school, college and the NFL.  OK, the other sports get a pat on the head, too, but let’s be honest: They’re just not violent enough.  (On the other hand, I saw 23 field hockey games  and 17 HS football games last fall, so what does that say?)

Bottom line: September is a great month, lack of playoffs notwithstanding.

January?  So much going on across the board.  It starts with major bowl games and ends with positioning for winter sports scholastic playoffs and the business end of the NFL playoff stick.  It’s interesting.  The TV is full, the house is warm and this past January you could walk the dogs without being assaulted by -10 degree wind chills.

Then comes April.  I have no inherent dislike for spring sports – I’ve loved track and field ever since Nick Horvath forced me to cover it for The Patriot-News in 1989 (pole … what?) – and I grew up as a baseball guy.  So it’s not the sports themselves.  On the other hand, does the Patriot-News run GameDay features for baseball and softball? Lacrosse? Girls soccer?  Didn’t think so.  And for good reason.  There’s just no escaping the fact that fall sports and spring sports reside on differently psychological planets.

Hell, the PIAA doesn’t even meet in April. (I know.  You just stopped reading.)  Is it any surprise, then, that I haven’t posted a thing on this site since March 29?  Why should I post boredom?  Although I should get around to re-posting the PIAA records on my site that were damaged in a plug-in assault over the winter.  I guess April would be a good time to do that.

Since sports rules my worlds and April is the weakest sports month of the year, I just wish the month away as soon as possible on that basis alone.

The deeper reasons, of course, are taxes (God, please smite the IRS, the Pennsylvania Department of revenue and every  other life-draining taxing body out there … oh, and public-sector unions, while You’re at it) and the fact that I became engaged to the ex in April.  Lots of bad memories in April.

And there aren’t enough sports to wash it away.

But I see May is just three weeks away.  That’s three weeks too many.

UPDATE:  Think I was off my ever-slowing rocker?  Here’s some supporting evidence: TAX DAY KILLS

There are a couple of big items on the agenda: (1) District 11 is once again seeking a second spot in the Class AAA Team Championships; it currently has just one spot allotted for the next cycle. If the committee suspends protocol, it will add a qualifier to the Team Championships for not just District 11, but also for Districts 1, 3 and 7, which is exactly what happened the last two years, and it expanded the AAA bracket from 16 teams to 20 teams

Last time around, it passed. But there’s some sentiment not to go in that direction for this cycle, in part because no one likes those pigtail matches being wrestled on the Monday immediately after the district team championships. PIAA has said it will consider moving the pigtails to Thursday morning at the Giant Center.

The other big issue – and it will be a food fight – will be the proposed new regional alignments in Class AAA.

The proposal is to move District 4 from the Northeast to the Northwest with Districts 6, 8, 9, 10 and to move District 12 from the Southeast to the Northeast with Districts 2 and 11. If that happens, it would leave District 1 with 62 AAA teams and District 3 with 63 AAA teams, giving the Southcentral Region the No. 4 qualifier to states for the next cycle (it had belonged to the Southeast).

That alone has caused some fireworks, but it was exacerbated by the fact that when the PIAA first drew up the proposal, Districts 1 and 3 each had 62 AAA teams. District 3′s 63rd AAA team came when Middletown, which has traditionally requested an upgrade to AAA from AA, sent in its request after the PIAA deadline, but was granted the upgrade administratively by both District 3 and the PIAA staff.

That circumstance prompted the PIAA Board to propose a new policy that would permit late upgrades, but to have no effect on the qualifying standards.

I’ll be back with the blog at 2 p.m.

- – -

The meeting will begin shortly.

Meeting has begun.

Doing a review of the Team Championships and Individual Championships.  Based on Bob Lombardi’s report, it looks like the four-mat, all-place match format will continue.

Frank Vulcano of District 7 says he liked the format generally, suggest a new mat configuration to provide a better viewing opportunity for fans and get the medal stand out on the floor.

Bob Hartman of District 11 says there were more negatives than positive from D-11, primarily along the lines of not featuring the finalists enough.

It looks like the main adjustments that PIAA will consider are: (1) New mat configuration (a T-shape with two mats near the media tables, then single mats aligned in the middle of the floor with the championship bout mat dead center on the floor); (2) bringing the medal stand on the floor; (3) finding ways to highlight the finalists.

Agreed on this.  Let’s move forward one more year with the above tweaks.  I think it will work.

Discussion now on Penns Valley wrestler who missed weigh-in on Thursday morning.

Discussion now on the RFP (Request For Proposal) for the Team Wrestling and Individual Wrestling venue for the next four years.  Shouldn’t last long.

here comes the discussion on entries to the Team Championships.  This is where District 11 will make its case for an additional qualifier.

Bob Hartman of D-11 moves to expand the tournament to 20 teams in AAA and AA. Seconded by Frank Vulcano of D-7.

Talk about moving pigtail matches to Thursday morning at Giant Center dies quickly.  If 20-team is approved, pigtail matches will continue to be wrestled on Mondays.

Bob Lombardi is making the case for the 20-team bracket.  Believes that district runners-up should have the opportunity to participate.

Vote to send to the Board:  13-1 in favor of 20-team bracket for both Class AAA and Class AA.

District 5 is arguing for a second qualifier in AA.  Bob Lombardi says the staff will present that to the Board if the committee agrees.

Now, there is a motion by District 5 to expand the tournament to permit every district to include a runner-up for every district.  That motion fails, 10-4.

To clarify: The steering committee will move a proposed 20-team bracket in both Class AAA and Class AA instead of a 16-team bracket in both.  Districts 1, 2 and 5 will NOT receive a second qualifier in AA under this proposal, nor will District 12 in Class AAA.

Now, comes the discussion over the proposed regional alignment.

Here’s the nut:

The proposal is to move District 4 from the Northeast to the Northwest with Districts 6, 8, 9, 10 and to move District 12 from the Southeast to the Northeast with Districts 2 and 11. If that happens, it would leave District 1 with 62 AAA teams and District 3 with 63 AAA teams, giving the Southcentral Region the No. 4 qualifier to states for the next cycle (it had belonged to the Southeast).

That alone has caused some fireworks, but it was exacerbated by the fact that when the PIAA first drew up the proposal, Districts 1 and 3 each had 62 AAA teams. District 3′s 63rd AAA team came when Middletown, which has traditionally requested an upgrade to AAA from AA, sent in its request after the PIAA deadline, but was granted the upgrade administratively by both District 3 and the PIAA staff.

District 1 is arguing that if one or more of its AA teams wish to upgrade to Class AAA before the Board’s third and final reading, it should be able to do the same as Middletown did.

District 12 is now making the travel argument against moving to the Northeast Region.

Brad Cashman steps in and points out that moving D12 to Northeast provides better balance in terms of the number of schools in regional tournaments.  He said that PIAA has bent its own rules by allowing District 1 to keep the revenues of the Southeast Region Tournament and basically told D1 and D12 that it will make the Southeast an interdistrict regional (rather than a so-called self-contained region) and run the tournament from the PIAA office.

Brad also points out that several districts have extensive travel to regional tournament.  He specifically points out D2′s lengthy travel to Northeast in Bethlehem for years.  D9 points out its lengthy travel to Sharon for Northeast AA.

Still no decision by steering committee on what to recommend to Board regarding region alignment.  And I have some bad news:  I have to pick up my lax goalie at Central Dauphin at 5, which means I have to roll at 4:15 latest.

Lots of discussion.

First motion:  D12 remains in Southeast Region. D3 seconds.  Basically, it’s a vote to keep the status quo.

The vote fails: 1-12.

Darn it. Have to go. And the discussion about how to align the regions is ongoing.  Apologies, but that’s the Dad Duty factor.

OK, playing catch-up.  Bottom line: Unless the Board does something drastic, the AAA regional alignments will change for the next cycle: D12 to the Northeast, D4 to the Northwest.

Wood jumps out to 9-1 lead, LC cuts it to 9-3 at 3:55

Lancaster Catholic having some trouble penetrating solid Wood defense … trails 11-7 with 90 seconds left in 1st

Catholic nice job of clawing back after slow start, trail 13-9 end 1st

START 2ND

Wood working motion offense well. Leads 17-11

A couple of LC turnovers and some patient offense by Wood results in 24-14 Wood lead with a minute to play in the half

HALFTIME: Archbishop Wood 26, Lancaster Catholic 14

Catholic just not having a good shooting night, hitting just 5 of 14 from the floor, including 1 of 6 from the 3-point line … 10 turnovers haven’t helped much

START 3rd

Wood continues to cruise, leading 37-21 with 1:52 to play in the quarter.

Wood just too much handle at both ends for Catholic, even get a late steal and bucket at the end of the third period for emphasis

END 3RD: Archbishop Wood 41, Lancaster Catholic 22

START 4TH

LC never had a chance: Final – Archbishop Wood 52, Lancaster Catholic 33

You can follow the live action here: PIAA LIVE BOX SCORES

Currently, Steel-High leads 12-7 with 3:00 left in first quarter.

Steel-High is 4-for-6 from 3 land, hitting first 3 attempts

OK, make that 5-for-7: Steel-High leads 21-12

END FIRST Q: STEELTON-HIGHSPIRE 21, NORTH CATHOLIC 14

Good quarter for Rollers: 7 for 15 shooting, 5 for 8 from beyond the arc, only 2 turnovers

START 2ND

Steel-High extends lead to 26-16, scoring well-balanced among starters

North Catholic creeping back, two turnovers for five points cuts it to 28-23 at the 3:22 mark

North Catholic with in 1, 28-27 at 2:00

North Catholic takes first lead of game, 29-28 at 1:27

Tied at the half, 31-31

START 3RD

It’s a great game now. Steel-High leads 42-39 with 2;46 left. Pretty physical underneath now.

Steel-High stretches leads to 47-41

North Catholic closes late

End 3rd quarter: Steelton-Highspire 47, Pittsburgh North Catholic 45

START 4TH

Lots of action. Jazmine Blanding of SH knocked to floor on a block, crowd goes bananas was NC gets possession. Plenty of bumping around in the second half.

Steel-High leads 55-51 with 4:00 left

Amber Hess-Moore is T’d up … NC makes two of four free throws, closes to 55-53 with possession

Wow, Steel-High could have yielded as much as 7 points after the technical (2 FTs for tech, 2 FTs for shooting foul and a possible 3 after possession) and only give up 2 points … then Moore-hess comes back to nail a 3 … 58-53 Steel-High with 2:24 left

Steel-High 58-55 with 1:18 to play, Steel-High with TO with 1:18 to play

Steel-High with a burst, leads 62-55 under a minute

NC scores underneath, closes to 62-57 with 17.6 left

All but over, Jaz Blanding of Steel-High makes a pair of free throws to give SH 64-57 lead

Talking about the pending competitive cheer championship, but there is a LOT more coming after this.

The proposal to change the format of the PIAA volleyball championships from pool play at the quarterfinal level to straight, single-elimination bracket play has been tabled until the May meeting.

The Board will be addressing a heat-acclimation period before the start of preseason football practice. The item was supposed to come up on Thursday, but the Thursday session was abbreviated for a reception for outgoing executive director Brad Cashman. Friday’s session was taken up entirely by the interviews and voting for the new executive director.

The heat-acclimation proposal, which came out of the sports medicine advisory committee, is for a 5-day period during which only helmets may b worn and no actual on-field practice or position instruction can occur.

That will come up later in the meeting.

Actually, the heat acclimation proposal is coming up right now.

Immediately, District 7 and District 3 oppose the proposal, essentially saying that the 5-day period is unnecessary because players use helmets and shouldr pads all summer during workouts, as per recent PIAA rules changes.

In addition, the athletic directors association was unhappy to have this put in front of the board for immediate action. There’s a lot to discuss here.

The discussion now is whether to table the proposal or to send it back to sports medicine with some of the concerns of this propoal: the timing, the expense to schools (paid coaches would necessarily run the acclimation period), etc. Also, District 3 chairman Sam Elias said there are other options, such as limiting the number of practices per day, or having the first three days of practice without pads.

Sam Elias says this a great idea, but it needs to tweaked within the context of what schools do and what schools need.

The proposal will be referred back to sports medicine for further discussion and review. Not sure when it will return to the Board, but if it does not come back up in May it will be impossible to implement for this season.

Next up is the second reading of qualifiers and pairings for PIAA Championships for the next two-year cycle.

This could be interesting.

District 7 has raised a concern that in basketball, many first-round games match representatives of the same district (example: 7-1 vs. 7-5 in the opening round of basketball). Brad Cashman explains that PIAA has been trying to pair the tournament with geography in mind to reduce travel costs and lost school time.

District 10 chairman Wally Blucas has just blasted the east-west crossover games, saying that the travel is ridiculous on a school night. Needless to say, he’s pointing to this past Wednesday’s AAAA boys basketball semifinal between Cathedral Prep and Lower Merion that was played at Bald Eagle Area near State College. The schools were traveled 414 and 390 miles round-trip on a school night. Both teams returned home very late.

But in the end, he is making a back-door argument to bring back pure East-West brackets. PIAA president Rod Stone points out that the east-west ship has sailed, especially in Class AAAA where 144 AAAA schools are in the east and just 40 are in the west.

The falls sports brackets and qualifiers were approved on a second-reading basis.

Regional wrestling is up now. District 12 is not pleased with its proposed move to the Northeast Region in Bethlehem, with support from District 1, which will lose a PIAA qualifier should D-12 leave the Southeast Region.

Here comes the Middletown upgrade argument. Brad Cashman is pointing out that several schools, including Middletown in wrestling, requested late upgrades in classification. Those upgrades, though late, are approved by PIAA if the district committee approves the upgrade.

Stone said he doesn’t understand why districts approve such requests after the deadline. Brad responds that it has always been done administratively.

Some arguing over the basketball brackets was short-circuited by a suggestion by School Boards rep Eric Wolfgang to let the process play out, pass the qualifiers and pairings on a second-reading basis, and allow the winter sports steering committees, which meet on Thursday, to hash out any problems, then return their recommendations to the Board in May.

And that’s what happens. Winter sports pairings pass, with District 1 objecting, on a second-reading basis. That means the fur will fly on Thursday the PIAA office, both in basketball and wrestling. I’ll be there.

Spring sports qualifiers and pairings pass without a word. When are we going to have a big fight over a spring sport?

Discussion now on PIAA by-law amendments. Now discussing third and final reading on the definition of public and private schools.

You’ll recall that PIAA has tried to define the definition of public schools by call them “boundary schools.” Private schools were called “non-boundary schools”. Charter schools and cyber schools were essentially defined as private schools even though they are public school creations.

There have been months of discussion on this, and the definitions have been revised several times.

That’s all moot now. By a unanimous vote, the Board decided to drop the definitions in favor of a committee to continue studying the issue. In other words, the long-standing status quo remains the status quo on the public-private issue.

Meeting is wrapping up. I’m heading over to Bryce Jordan Center where I’ll provide frequent updates on the Steel-High vs. North Catholic Class A girls championship. Might do a chat, might just update (looks like I’ll be writing a story for the Patriot-News; unfortunately, Andy Shay had car trouble en route to State College.)

I’m out. Thanks.

Hope to have an interview with Dr. Robert Lombardi, the incoming PIAA executive director as soon as possible.

Seton La Salle takes 7-5 lead, TO YC at 3:49

York catholic and Seton la Salle tied at 5-5 4:20

OK, so much for updates. Seton-LaSalle whipped York Catholic, 71-47. And I couldn’t find the good doctor yet.

—

We’ll do some updates from the Class A boys game between District 12 champion Constitution and District 7 champion Lincoln Park Charter.

For live updates from the PIAA website, go here.

Constitution leads, 7-2 at 5:22 1st , and the Generals are putting on a show.

Constitution up 13-7 with 3:30 to play in first quarter

Constitution leads 22-11 at the end of the first quarter. Daiquan Walker just cut loose with consecutive 3s. Constitution is a blast to watch

—

Lincoln Park rallying, closes to 26-20 late 2nd

Constitution pushes lead back to 11, takes 33-22 lead into the half

—

Constitution still flying all over the court, maintains arm’s-length lead over Lincoln Park, leads 37-27 with 3:36 to play in 3rd

TO with 1:53 left in the third, Constitution 43, Lincoln Park 29

End 3rd: Constitution 50, Lincoln Park 33 … boy, is Constitution fun to watch. I’d pay to watch its games. Fortunately, I don’t have to.

—

Constitution leads reaches 16, lead 58-42 with 3:49 to play on LP timeout

Constitution leads by 16 with 1:36 left, 60-44

FINAL: Constitution 68, Lincoln Park 49

We will come back live at approximately 10 a.m. to pick up the board vote and the resumption of the agenda of the BOD meeting.

Again, Stone would not release the names of the finalists Thursday night.

A more complete biography of Dr. Lombardi will appear here later.

We’ll be back around 10 a.m.

Back at the Nittany Lion Inn.

The interviews are complete. The Board is discussing the executive director position as we sit here.

Still in discussion at 10:50. Hang in there.

Going in now

The motion is made to conduct the ballot by paper. That motion fails.

Motion made to approve Bob Lombardi as ED. Motion passes unaninmously.

Dr. Lombardi has been on staff at PIAA since 1988 and has provided a variety of functions for PIAA. He administrates several of the PIAA’s championship event events and handles the PIAA’s more than 1,300 game officials.

This is a superb choice. Bob has been a highly competent and gregarious executive throughout the term of his employment at PIAA. It is Bob, as much as anyone, who worked to repair PIAA’s reputation fronm a secretive, back-room organization to a much more open, public-friendly organization.

It also provides PIAA with a seamless transition to the next era, which will feature some challenges: Public vs. private schools, the ongoing debate on the length of football season, financial crunches at the local school level that could have a serious impact on PIAA operations.

The Board is to be congratulated. It selected the right man for the job.

Signing off for now. Will pull up the blog when I get to the Bryce Jordan Center in about 20-30 minutes

Sorry for the delay getting the blog up and running, but there has already been a significant amount of drama. And currently the Board is in executive session discussing, well, we don’t really know.

First, the drama. Earlier today, PIAA Board president W. Rodney Stone released a memo to statewide media detailing changes in this weekend’s Board of Directors meeting schedule, based primarily on how it planned to proceed with the final interviews and eventual vote on the new executive director, who will take over for Brad Cashman, who will retire in July.

For the proper background and the details of the memo, please read the one-page memo here: BOARD MEMO

Stone had planned on asking the Board to authorize a paper ballot vote on Friday, which is not standard PIAA policy. PIAA policy is to complete interviews, meet in executive session, then call for a motion in public session followed by a public vote. A simple majority is needed to approve the new hire.

In addition, Stone wanted the decision withheld from the public until Monday morning, approximately 72 hours after the vote, in order to “allow participating member schools and their student-athletes to reap the benefit of exclusive media attention for the weekend’s (basketball) championship games.”

But the PIAA pulled a late-afternoon U-turn, deciding to drop the ballot and vote in public on Friday following the final interviews.

“The Board felt that is probably best to make the announcement with the media here (for the basketball championships),” PIAA assistant executive director Melissa Mertz said just after the Board went into executive session. “The Board will take a public vote following (Friday’s) interviews.”

As noted in a previous blog post, there are two final candidates for the executive director position. Media requested release of the names of the two final candidates, but Stone refused to release the identities of the finalists.

The likely time for the public vote will be around 10 to 10:30 a.m. We will be live at that time.

We are now in public session.

Currently, PIAA lobbyist John Milliron is giving the public version of potential legislation that could affect PIAA.

The Board is going through the usual early-agenda items: new members, co-ops, etc.

Not sure if much meat will come up tonight. Word is tonight’s session might be abbreviated.

Voting now on third and final reading for cross-country to increase to three classifications from two, starting with the 2012 season. The motion passes, 24-6. Three classes now for cross-country.

The meeting is in recess until Friday morning. Reason: The Board is holding a surprise reception for outgoing executive director Brad Cashman. And media is invited! (Don’t worry. Your blogger doesn’t drink any more. High school sports and all that).

Out for now. Will be back on Friday morning with the vote on the new executive director.