Overtime

As the high school sports world — and this blog — prepares to take a two-day break, I wanted to take a moment to wish all you readers a happy holiday season.

It has been fun watching this blog grow in just 15 months, and seeing the number of hits here each month is both gratifying and humbling.

As evidenced by the new BlueStreak-Overtime Player of the Week award, the goal is to continue to add new features to keep you coming back for more.

So thanks to all for your continued support and may the holidays be a time of joy and happiness.

Jonathan Boykin of the Trinity Catholic High School boys basketball team and Kevin Keller of the Darien High School boys indoor track team have been selected as the first recipients of the BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Player of the Week award.

Boykin and Keller will each receive plaques and T-shirts from BlueStreak.

Boykin had 19 points, six assists and hit a 55-foot shot at the buzzer to lead the Crusaders to a dramatic win over St. Joseph, then had 18 points and four assists in a victory over Brien McMahon.

Keller, in just his first indoor track meet, set school marks in the 200 and triple jump at the New Haven Invitational, then set a school record in the long jump at the Reindeer Relays.

Nominations for next week’s award will be accepted starting at noon today and run until noon next Tuesday.

Here again are the instructions for nominating an athlete.

The nominating has ended for the first-ever BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Player of the Week award, and the winner will be announced here tomorrow. The winner will receive a plaque with his/her name on it and a T-Shirt from BlueStreak.

There is a strong pool of candidates to choose from, and for the first week players from nine of the FCIAC’s 19 schools were submitted in five different sports.

The four finalists this week are: Jonathan Boykin, Trinity Catholic boys basketball; Evan Kelley, Norwalk boys basketball; Kevin Keller, Darien boys track; and Jana Persky, New Canaan girls hockey.

The voting for next week’s award will begin at noon tomorrow and continue until noon next Tuesday.

Spread the word: we want this to get to the point that we get players from all 19 schools in all sports nominated. And keep in mind that readers, as well as athletic directors and coaches, are permitted to nominate someone.

Come back tomorrow and find out the first winner.

There is still 15 hours left before the nominations close at noon tomorrow for the first-ever BlueStreak-Overtime Player of the Week award.

So far we have received a number of outstanding candidates….all submitted by coaches. Readers are also eligible to make nominations.

Here again are the instructions for making a nomination.

The first winner will be announced on Wednesday and receive a plaque with his/her name on it and a T shirt from BlueStreak.

There is still a little more than a day until winter, and because of vacation, previews and launching a new award on the blog, I was remiss in posting what I consider an interesting poll question: Which FCIAC team was the best sports story of the fall season?

I have included three teams that won league and state titles, one team that won an FCIAC title and reached a state final, a team that won a fourth straight state championship and another that won a state title, the first-ever in school history.

There are programs here that have had long-term success and others that are new to standing on the pedestal.

It is pretty straightforward and you have a week to vote starting from……NOW!

With today’s schedule likely to wiped out by snow, the week should be all over for FCIAC athletes and their body of work complete as the nominating process remains open for the first winner of the BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Player of the Week award.

You can nominate an athlete until noon on Tuesday. The first winner will be announced Wednesday.

Here is the procedure: nominations will be accepted from noon on Wednesdays until noon the following Tuesday. The award will be based on an athlete’s performance during the week (not on the season to date), from that Monday-Saturday. Thus, you want to wait to nominate a basketball player until after Friday night if he/she plays two games that week. If a basketball player has just one game on a Tuesday, you can nominate him/her after that game.

For athletes in other sports, please wait until they have finished competing for the week. I suspect most nominations will come in Friday night through Tuesday. You are only allowed to submit one name each week.

To nominate someone, please click on the “Send Your Nominations” link at the top right of the blog between the two BlueStreak ads. Please do not use the comments section of this posting. Give me the athlete’s name, school and the reasons for consideration (please include all pertinent statistics).

It should go something like this: “I would like to nominate Mary Smith of the Darien girls hockey team, who had four goals and two assists as we defeated New Canaan, 2-0, and Ludlowe, 3-1.” It is as simple as that. It would also help to include a contact number so we can get in touch with you if your nominee ends up winning.

After the voting closes, I will pick three finalists. Matt Cole, the president of BlueStreak, will then pick the winner, who will be announced each Wednesday and receive a plaque with his/her name on it as well as a T-shirt.

The hope here is to provide another forum to recognize athletes in all sports from all 19 FCIAC members, so please spread the word and encourage people to come to the blog and nominate someone. Coaches, athletic directors and readers are encouraged to participate in the process.

Just a reminder: the nominating process is open for the BlueStreak-Overtime FCIAC Player of the Week award. You can nominate an athlete until noon on Tuesday, and we will announce our first-ever winner Wednesday morning.

You can nominate someone by clicking on the “Send Your Nominations” link in between the two BlueStreak ads on this blog homepage.

For complete instructions, click here.

Of all the hot topics in high school sports in this area, I don’t think any stir as much passion as the debate about whether private schools should compete against public schools in athletics. And ’tis the season for the question to again come to the forefront.

It doesn’t come up in the fall during football season. No one raised the issue when St. Joseph just won a state title. It doesn’t come up in the spring during baseball season.

But from the time the basketballs are rolled onto the court at the end of November until CIAC champions are crowned in March, there is an outcry from public school supporters about having to compete against private schools.

I am going to tackle this issue backwards.

First, don’t look here for me to offer a grand new plan because there isn’t a good one. I don’t believe the CIAC wants separate leagues to happen, and its best solution is to make the private schools play up in class during the state playoffs, which certainly is imperfect. But the CIAC doesn’t have a lot of options to play with.

Contrary to some of the attempts to split all the Catholic schools into two divisions on some previous blog posts here, they look good on paper but lousy in practicality. I am going to deal with this from the Trinity Catholic perspective, since that is the private school I cover most frequently, though this will be applicable to all schools.

The closest private schools to Trinity are Notre Dame of Fairfield, Fairfield Prep, St. Joseph, Kolbe Cathedral and Immaculate. Those trips would be the equivalent of Trinity now going to Norwalk or New Canaan. As much as fans see this as a simple solution, the travel time and costs are prohibitive. And, as someone suggested, to the contrary you cannot compare Trinity heading upstate to FCIAC schools traveling to Danbury, which happen once every other year.

Going to Fairfield, Bridgeport or Danbury would be Trinity’s shortest trip. Because of how far the Catholic schools are spread out, a league of its own is just not practical and would make long days even longer for student-athletes.

Now, having said that, I cannot argue that private schools have an inherent advantage in that they are regional and thus can draw from a much larger area. The fact that Trinity has been able to get players on the team from the White Plains area has provided it with a huge edge. I have shared that opinion with people at the school. Would Trinity have been as successful without Rashamel Jones, Earl Johnson and Torey Thomas? Of course not.

But the above-mentioned options are not viable, as much as people would like to solve this problem with one broad stroke of the brush. And if the CIAC had a better answer, it would have enacted it already.

Before making two more points, and since I suspect this post will draw a lot of comments, I’m curious why this issue is raised only during basketball season? Is it because, unlike many other sports, it only takes one or two good players to make such an impact in basketball? Is it because the private schools probably have had more success in basketball than other sports? It is because basketball, after football, is the most high-profile sport out there?

Back to the two points. While some comments on this blog have talked about how great the rivalries would be in a new Catholic school league, what about Trinity-Stamford? That FCIAC final last year was one of the great spectacles in the city’s rich sports history. What about Trinity-Westhill? St. Joseph-Trumbull? What about the long-standing tradition Trinity has had after all the years in the FCIAC? Are people really ready to see that all go away?

And there is one bigger point that is going to make me seem like an apologist, but is never brought up and I believe is quite salient. Years ago, during a practice on the day before a state final, Johnson and I sat in the Trinity gymnasium and discussed the issue.

“Everyone talks about what we do for the school,” Johnson said. “How about what the school has done for us?”

What would have happened to Jones, Johnson and Thomas without the opportunities that were afforded them? Jones won a national championship at UConn, later returned to get his degree and is now working with underprivileged kids in Mount Vernon. We met at Madison Square Garden three weeks ago and it is nice to see the person he has become. He was introduced to some influential UConn boosters and made a strong impression.

I have to admit, I am more sensitive to this than the average fan because I have had the chance to get to know most of the Trinity players from outside the Stamford area fairly closely, keep in touch with several of them, and I guess because of that I have a little different view on the matter. And I realize Jones, Johnson and Thomas could have still come to Trinity and played in a Catholic school league.

So there it is. Is there a problem? I’ll call it a loophole. Do the private schools have an inherent edge? Absolutely. If you tell me there should be separate leagues, I cannot argue with you. But until a reasonable solution that I don’t think is ever coming is presented, I think this debate is going to rage on for a long time to come.