Leading off today: Versatile Boys & Girls football star Wilbert Lee has committed to play for the University of Connecticut, which projects him as a Division I strong safety, The New York Post reported.

   He is at least the 12th New York rising senior to settle on a major-college football suitor so far this summer. (Full list: RoadToSyracuse.com) and the first big-time recruit in 'Roos coach Barry O'Connor's eight years at the Brooklyn school.

   Lee was getting piles of mail from numerous schools, but the Huskies won Lee over in no small part by being the first to send a coach to Bed-Stuy to woo him. He was sold on them from the beginning," O’Connor told the paper. "You gotta fall in love with who falls in love with you."

   At 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, Lee possesses a combination of size and speed way over the norm. He played running back and wide receiver and also returned kicks last season. He scored five TDs in an injury-shortened season.

   Section 1 legend dies: New York lost one of its greatest basketball coaches -- and an even finer gentleman -- last week when Mike DelVal, one of 33 boys coaches in state history to roll up 500 victories, died at the age of 89.

   DelVal won 514 games at Alexander Hamilton, Woodlands and Rye and also accumulated nine Section 1 trophies and three New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.

   "He was the best," Spencer Hood, who played for DelVal at Woodlands from 1969-71, told The Journal News. "Really, the nicest person you'd ever want to meet. He was teaching us, and it wasn't just basketball. He was teaching us life lessons. Unfortunately, I didn't get them at the time, but reflecting back on it, he was teaching us how to be men."

   DelVal went 275-75 at Woodlands, winning three sectional titles and roaming the sideline for the seven-OT tournament game against Ardsley in 1982. He won 233 games and all of his state titles at Alexander Hamilton. He took over the Rye program briefly at the age of 79.

   When The Journal News selected its team of the 20th century, DelVal was chosen as the No. 1 coach.

   Busted: A recent All-Greater Rochester first-team basketball selection is one of three males arrested in connection with an armed robbery on Monday, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

   The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said Lonnie Townsend, 21; Alec Rouse, 18; and Cameron Bailey, 17, are accused of using two cars to box in the victim in her car and robbing her at gunpoint with a shotgun.

   Townsend was identified as a suspect by fingerprints evidence and implicated the others, police said. All three suspects were charged with first-degree robbery, fourth-degree grand larceny and second-degree assault.

   Bailey averaged 16 points and 10.5 rebounds as a senior for Wilson Magnet. He had indicated at the time of his AGR selection that he would attend junior college in Illinois. Lake Land College does not list him among its incoming recruits.

   He's back at Ford: Former Bishop Ford girls basketball coach Denis Nolan is returning to the Brooklyn school, this time to coach the boys team according to The New York Post.

   Nolan, 46, a former boys assistant in the program, took over the girls squad in 2000 and returned three years ago. The 1982 Bishop Ford graduate will be replacing John

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Infortunio, who resigned after four seasons.

   He spent the past two seasons coaching the Abraham Lincoln girls and also coaches the New York City scholastic team for the Empire State Games.

   Speaking of ESGs ... Former Newsday reporter Jason Molinet has worked up EmpireStateLacrosse.com, with a feature on Kyle Keenan currently highlighted.

   Keenan, the son of Smithtown West lacrosse coach Sean Keenan, is coming off his third varsity season and tallied 53 assists this spring. The Duke recruit is an attackman on Long Island's team in next week's Empire State Games in Buffalo.

   Keenan's mother is Bridget Keenan, a former ESG soccer player for the ESG open women's team. Unknown to her at the time, Bridget Keenan was pregnant with Kyle during her final ESG appearance in 1992.

   Time to renew your subscription: If you haven't already renewed your membership to the New York State Sportswriters Association, now is definitely the time to do so. The summer months are far less chaotic than the school year, so NYSSWA editor and treasurer Neil Kerr can process your renewal quickly and get your new membership card into the mail.

   The membership fee remains unchanged at $40 even though we're anticipating an increase in the cost of postage to kick in before the end of the upcoming school year. You can find the mailing address for your renewal here.

   If you're not interested in a full membership that includes more than 45 weekly issues of the NYSSWA newsletter but would still like to contribute to the cause, we have set up a PayPal account that's hosted on out RoadToSyracuse.com football site.

   More than a few sports fans were kind enough to use the PayPal option to help us defray the expense last year while Neil and I were trying do decide whether we'd be able to continue operating this year; we're definitely committed to continuing, but any help you could provide would help.

   Under construction: Work has begun on a long-overdue overhaul of the NewYorkSportswriters.org web site, with the official re-launch coming some time in August.

   The current home page has gotten stale and doesn't do a very good job of highlighting the available material. The new version will be modular, allowing me to swap out components fairly easily when there's something that needs added emphasis -- a live blog from an event, for instance -- at a particular time.