Leading off today: High school football has been sent to the sidelines for the season -- and maybe much longer -- at Hamilton Central School.

   Coach Joe LePage told The Observer-Dispatch only 17 players –- including four seniors, two eighth-graders and five freshmen -- showed up for Monday’s first practice. That was enough to call off the varsity season, which was supposed to begin Sept. 4 vs. Bishop Grimes, and school officials have decided they do not have enough players to field JV or modified squads either.

   Hamilton is at least the second NYSPHSAA school to drop the sport recently at the varsity level for 2010. Saratoga Catholic suspended the varsity program last month because of lack of interest. A. Philip Randolph of the PSAL has also scrapped its season.

   “This really bothers me,” said LePage, who has been the coach for the last three years. “It’s terrible. For the ones here who wanted to play, my heart goes out to them.”

   Hamilton went 2-6 last year and finished the season with 16 players, the state minimum, the paper reported.

   LePage said senior quarterback Coley Graham is expected to move in with relatives in order to be able to play at Cooperstown. Folding Hamilton into a co-op arrangement with another school is unlikely this fall or down the road.

   Changes at Gannett: Some Gannett newspapers and TV stations have already been using the product, but now the company is finally about to go all-in with the HighSchoolSports.net product that the media chain acquired in 2007.

   Gannett announced today that the venture will roll out this month in 38 locations with about 60 others scheduled to be online by the end of the year.

   Gannett has newspapers in Rochester, Elmira, Ithaca, Binghamton, Poughkeepsie and Westchester County as well as a TV station in Buffalo that have used HighSchoolSports.net components to varying degrees in recent years; it wasn't immediately clear when they'll convert their high school coverage to HSS, which is supposed to deliver schedules, game results and statistics to online users and also allow for "reverse publishing" of the data into a format easily adapted for the

RoadToSyracuse.com Football Site

daily newspaper.

   In order to make the most of the product, though, the newspapers will be relying upon coaches and ADs to input schedules, rosters and game results in a timely fashion. Some papers that started using the HSS product shortly after Gannett bought a controlling stake in Schedule Star LLC found it to be buggy, but other sites have been able to deliver functional online silos recently.

   Decision looming: It's not surprising that he has narrowed his college list already, but Mount Vernon basketball star Jabarie Hinds probably turned some heads when he disclosed his list to Zagsblog.com this week.

   Whereas many players' final three to five choices tend to come from one or two conferences and are usually skewed toward Atlantic coast locations, Hinds says he's got his choice down to Oklahoma State, West Virginia and UNLV. The 6-foot-1 guard previously considered Wake Forest (which appears to still be in the mix to some degree), Cincinnati, Miami and UConn.

   Extra points: Monticello began practice on Monday for its first varsity football season since 1935, coached by Matt Buddenhagen. He took Cornwall team to the NYSPHSAA Class A final in 2006. Also in Section 9, Fallsburg is fielding a varsity for the first time and Rondout Valley is back after being unable to field a team in 2009.