NYSSWA blog: Pleasantville boys lacrosse coach resigns

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Leading off today: Pleasantville boys lacrosse coach Gregg Cavaluzzi has resigned after three seasons, but he's apparently not done with the sport, The Journal News reported.

Pleasantville was Cavaluzzi's second head coaching job. From 2001-2003, he coached at Ridgefield (Conn.), where he won a state title. Cavaluzzi said he has applied for Horace Greeley's lacrosse job, which became available after Roy Colsey resigned. From the department of coincidences, Colsey recently applied for the vacant Ridgefield job.

"The kids, the district, the school were all great," Cavaluzzi told the paper. "I needed to take most of the summer to make this decision. There were just too many outside distractions that made it difficult for me to do my job coaching."

Candor names football coach: Candor has promoted eight-year assistant Mike Swartz to head football coach, The Ithaca Journal reported.

Swartz, 34, is a Candor graduate who inherits a team coming off a 7-2 season and has several key players returning. Wayne Aman had resigned as coach earlier in the year in anticipation of the birth of a child.

List of football scrimmages: In the course of compiling some other information for the site, I've pieced together details on about three dozen varsity football scrimmages scheduled for Aug. 30 and have built a page.

Please feel free to send me an e-mail if you have the details on any of the many scrimmages not yet listed. I'll continue updating the page every few days throughout the month.

PSAL adds double dutch as a sport: The PSAL has decided to sponsor double dutch, in which competitors jump between two ropes twirled eggbeater-style, as a co-ed high school sport next spring.

"We're always thinking, 'What do we need to do to get more kids playing?'" said Eric Goldstein, chief executive of the Public School Athletic League.

Teams from around the country compete in events such as the Double Dutch Holiday Classic at Harlem's Apollo Theater, and the pastime has even spread oversees. But the PSAL is believed to be the first high school athletics organization to embrace it as a sport.

Double dutch is judged on a point system, with compulsory, speed and freestyle components. The PSAL will work in the coming months to train enough coaches and officials to handle an estimated 10 to 15 teams across the five boroughs for the inaugural season.

The PSAL has become cutting-edge with respect to adding sports. It recently started a cricket program that attracted 14 teams last spring.