Talk about putting in time

The Weston High girls basketball site is keeping up-to-date records and potential tournament brackets for Eastern Massachusetts basketball teams. His work is definitely appreciated -- coaches have told me they're looking at it regularly, and one, talking about the time the webmaster must put in, said "He must not have a job."

Whether he has one or not, it's a special endeavor.

Still on the schools ...

It's National Letter of Intent Day (when the bulk of early-committed recruits sign with colleges), and scout.com is doing a nice job with its coverage. They're trying hard to put together a comprehensive list of each school's football recruits, and appear to be updating their signing class rankings every two hours.

Just in case you were worried about how the Temple Owls will look in a few years, their class was ranked 69th as of 11:27 a.m., with their top recruit a 6-0, 200-pound running back named Joe Jones from Hollywood, Fla. who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.50 seconds, hadn't yet signed a letter of intent and committed to the school on Feb. 5. He went to South Broward High School in Florida and is the 51st-highest ranked running back in the nation. Why, I ask you, wouldn't you want to know these things?

A novel concept from Newsday

Long Island Newsday's school sports section is the third link that appears on Google when searching for "High school sports," and they deserve it. And not just for having links to the paper's coverage of "H.S. Bowling" and "H.S. Riflery".

Delving in, the paper's prep sports site is pretty awesome. There's a lot done right here; from the easy access to individual schools' schedules, photos and scores on the right side of the front page (none of these are typically easy to find) to this list of college commitments by current and former school student-athletes. Yes, Newsday ... I was interested in knowing Whitman's Caitlin Young went to the Air Force Academy for fencing in 2004!

Perhaps the best part of Newsday's commitment list: It looks to be almost entirely user-created, with a link to send e-mail alerts of athletes' school choices. Just today, I spent 10 minutes responding to a message board post asking where local girls soccer players went to school ... if my paper had this page, I could've sent a link, rather than cutting and pasting snippets of All-Scholastic capsules. Free, informative copy that will save me time? Sign me up.

I'm a former cyclist

so I'm biased, but Podium Cafe does an awful lot of things right. Sure, it's all but incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't follow pro cycling, but it certainly makes for diverting reading for someone who's followed it.

Boston blogging

A quick plug here for Danny Ventura and Jim Clark's Boston Herald school sports blog.

They're some of the hardest-working prep writers around, and deserve all the readership and respect they get. Their blogging and daily coverage is as good as it gets in Massachusetts.

(Everywhere except the South Shore, that is.)