Leading off today: Apache Paschall, highly successful but a lightning rod for controversy in the competitive New York City girls basketball scene, died Tuesday following a brief battle with cancer. He was 38.
The New York Post broke the news early in the afternoon, shortly after players and colleagues began to learn the news.
Nazareth is 3-0 this season, ranked No. 1 in the state by the New York State Sportswriters Association, sixth nationally by USA Today and No. 9 by MaxPreps. Assistant coach Ron Kelley had assumed many of the responsibilities with the team this winter, though Paschall was on the bench for games.
The cause of Paschall's death was not immediately known. He had been undergoing radiation treatments on his neck and jaw five times a week after being diagnosed with skin cancer in October. The diagnosis came on the heels of a bout of congestive heart failure while he was under investigation for recruiting allegations last season.
The Lady Kingsmen's scheduled game against Brooklyn/Queens league foe Bishop Ford on Thursday will be played as scheduled, Kelley told the paper. The status of Saturday's homecoming game against Christ the King, already postponed once this season, was not immediately clear.
Paschall coached Nazareth to a 29-3 record and the Federation Class AA championship last season in Albany. Paschall and many of his players came over from St. Michael Academy -- which won a Federation crown in 2009 -- after that school closed its doors in June 2010.
The coach endured an investigation by the Catholic High School Athletic Association related to whether St. Michael Academy players were offered improper inducements to follow him to Brooklyn but was cleared on the eve of the postseason last winter. Though eventually cleared by the league, we was suspended by his school principal for a week (including two early-round playoff games) for insubordination for granting an extensive interview to The New York Post during the investigation.
"One thing that people will have to say good or bad is that he always was there for the girls," AD Rochelle Murphy told ESPN. "He was just trying to give them an opportunity to play the game that they loved."
In September, the roster was bolstered by the arrival of three-out-of-state guards -- a startling infusion of talent even by the sometimes suspect standards of the New
