Friday, Sept. 7, 2012: Great Neck North guts out emotional win

   Leading off today: Great Neck North, playing one week after the death of coach Chris Deeks, opened its Section 8 football season with a 20-18 victory over St. Dominic's on Thursday in Oyster Bay.

   "We have 21 hours a day to grieve, but for three hours we pour our hearts onto the field," senior Oliver Elihu told Newsday. "The last thing Coach Deeks would want is for us to be upset. He'd want us to celebrate his life. We're carrying on his legacy."

   Byron Azizi scored on a 1-yard with 2:07 left for the winning points after Elihu's 37-yard carry.

   Deeks died Aug. 30 at the age of 60.

   "We practiced until about 6 o'clock and there were no signs of anything," said Chris Cesar, the defensive coordinator who replaced Deeks as coach. "I got a call that he died around 8 o'clock, at home with his family. We had an early practice the next morning. The principal and the athletic director came and we told the kids. Then we cleared the room and gave just the football players an hour to grieve and to bond."

   Guidance counselors and psychologists spoke to players afterward. "The kids cried together and then they handled it beautifully," Cesar said.

   Scandal at private powerhouse: Hyattsville, Md., DeMatha High, a private school known largely for its legendary basketball program but also long-respected for its gridiron prowess, is immersed in a football scandal.

   Five players are off the team after prostitutes were allegedly hired from a call service to the team hotel following a 52-14 season-opening win at Hillside, N.C., last Friday, The Washington Post reported.

   Two players withdrew from the school, two more are appealing recommendations for expulsion and a fifth awaits his disciplinary hearing. The players are reportedly outfoxed a supervision plan of bed checks and hallway monitors to bring three prostitutes into the hotel at 5 a.m., the paper reported.

   More football links: Mark Adair's amazing Western New York football magazine is uploaded on our site each week in PDF format. Here's the link to Week 2. You can always find the most current link in the bottom left corner of our blog pages.

   Also, here's the link to the Week 2 schedule for New York teams, as compiled by Steve Grandin.

   I can say with absolute certainty that one game on the schedule stands above all the rest. Nationally respected Bergen Catholic travels from New Jersey to South Huntington on Friday night to play St. Anthony's, the defending CHSFL champion riding a 29-game winning streak.

   "We like to open up against opponents that are only

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going to make us a better team as the season moves on," Friars coach Rich Reichert told Newsday. "It's exciting for the players and it's exciting for the coaches. This is a tremendous challenge."

   Looking back: Many of us have beloved memories of great games from years ago.

   Among mine are an Aquinas-Binghamton North game in 1976 played in horrific weather before maybe 20 people in a 20,000-seat stadium, The Ray Rice/Greg Paulus state final at the Carrier Dome and the Canandaigua-Hornell fumble-rooskie game the night Ben Johnson "won" the Olympic 100 meters.

   This week, Pete Tobey of The Post-Star revived memories of a Section 2 classic: Cambridge's 21-20 victory over Saranac Lake courtesy of a double-lateral touchdown pass. That win on Nov. 29, 1992 -- the last season before the NYSPHSAA introduced a full-fledged tournament, amounted to a de facto state co-championship although the New York State Sportswriters Association anointed Western Region champion Caledonia-Mumford as the sole No. 1 in Class C.

   Tobey does an excellent job of explaining the play and the Cambridge dynasty it helped launch. Read it here.

   Extra points: Bishop Timon-St. Jude quarterback Ryan Dougherty, injured in last week's 21-14 win over Williamsville South, tweeted this week that his knee is pain-free and he hopes a month of rehabilitation will allow him to get back on the field in time for the Monsignor Martin Association playoffs.