Ruminating on Bills uniforms, Boeheim's fantasy camp and Detective Columbo

I'm old school when it comes to the Buffalo Bills uniforms. I've long advocated a return to the 1960s uni's with the royal blue jerseys and the classic red, grazing buffalo on the white helmet.

But I must admit, at first glance, I like the new Bills threads, even with the return of the charging buffalo. There is a retro feel, especially with the return to the white helmets, and the color scheme of the jerseys and pants.

They're a marked improvement over the uniform changes Tom Donahoe instituted back in 2002. Maybe the Bills can hold a ceremony where they burn a jersey from that era. It would be a symbolic gesture to divorce themselves from the worst stretch in franchise history.

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Kudos to CEO Russ Brandon and the Bills front office for having members of the military model the uniforms last night at the Ralph. Classy move.

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The announcement that the Jets will not be staging their training camp at Cortland State this summer doesn't bode well for the Bills coming back to St. John Fisher late next month. The lockout is forcing NFL teams to stage their camps at home, and I fear that the Bills will be making a similar announcement if a new labor agreement isn't ironed out by the Fourth of July.

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Jim Boeheim has come up with another creative way to raise money for his charitable foundation. This August, he's staging a three-day fantasy camp for adults 35-and-older in which participants will get to play with and be coached by SU basketball legends, including Pearl Washington, Roosevelt Bouie, Billy Owens and John Wallace. The price is steep ($5,500 per camper), but it sounds like a cool experience for those who really, really bleed orange. Thirty of the 35 openings have been filled. For more information, you can check out Boeheim's website.

Now, to make the camp even more realistic, I think Coach Jim should have a sportswriter on hand to grill the campers after practices and games. For the right price, I would be happy to play the role.

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Looking forward to seeing the inaugural class of the Section V Baseball Hall of Fame honored before tomorrow's Red Wings game at Frontier Field. It's a very impressive group of inductees, featuring a number of Rochester-area ballplayers who went on to enjoy big-league success.

Among them are George "Twinkle Toes" Selkirk, who had the uneviable task of playing right field for the Yankees immediately after they got rid of a guy by the name of Babe Ruth. Selkirk wound up having a nice major-league career, but the bleacher creatures in the Bronx were brutal toward him.

Another one of tomorrow's honorees will be Johnny Antonelli, the former Jefferson High ace pitcher who won 125 games in the majors and was a five-time All-Star and a World Series champion. He's also one of the nicest and most humble men you'll ever meet.

Johnny and I have sat down for several interview sessions. We're collaborating on his autobiography, which will be published by RIT Press next spring. He has some fabulous stories of playing for the New York Giants in the 1950s, when the Big Apple featured three big-league clubs and was the capital of baseball.

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It's a marvelous day for western New York hockey fans, now that the Buffalo Sabres and Rochester Americans have reconciled after a three-year separation. I think it's great that Sabres owner Terry Pegula purchased the Amerks, but let's also give credit to the man he bought the team from - Curt Styres. Styres inherited a minor-league hockey franchise heavily in debt, and lost millions of dollars attempting to revive it. Without his efforts, the team very well might have left town.

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Ah, just one more thing. I was saddenned to hear of Peter Falk's death yesterday. His portrayal of Lt. Columbo, the dis-jointed, cigar-chomping detective in the rumpled trench coat was one of my all-time favorite television characters.

Falk earned his master's degree from Syracuse University in 1953 and applied to work for the CIA, but was rejected. The CIA's loss was our gain, as Falk embarked on a successful acting career that saw him earn two Oscar nominations before his immensely popular 1970s tv series.

Falk lost his eye to cancer at age 3 and early in his acting career a producer told him he would never make it because of his glass eye. Fortunately, Falk didn't listen to that negative nabob.

Falk reveled in telling the story of disputing an umpire's call during a Little League Baseball game as an 11-year-old. At one point, Falk became so infuriated that he actually removed his glass eye and said to the arbiter, "Here, maybe you can use this."

Getting to know Jim Boeheim through the years

My senior year at Syracuse University was Jim Boeheim’s first as head basketball coach of the Orangemen.

None of us students knew much about him at the time, other than that he had been a bespectacled, geeky-looking assistant coach who wore god-awful plaid sports coats and had a name many of us mispronounced.

He was the polar opposite, personality-wise, of his predecessor, Roy Danforth, who was a glib guy who loved interacting with reporters and with us students, particularly the rowdy ones who transformed the Manley Fieldhouse “Zoo’’ into one of America’s true college basketball pits.

That winter of 1976-77, we learned that although Boeheim didn’t look the part, he could flat-out coach. The son of a Lyons, N.Y. undertaker guided that team to a 26-4 record and accumulated 100 victories in his first four years.

After graduating from SU, I would come to know Boeheim in a different light – from the perspective of a reporter and later as a columnist. Unlike Roy, he was not a media darling. In fact, he often treated young reporters – yours truly included – with feelings bordering on contempt. Interviewing him often turned into a competition. We were perceived as the enemy. The most innocuous questions could set him off. Dumb questions (and, heaven knows, I asked a few of those) could result in volcanic eruptions.

As the years progressed, and I matured as a person and a reporter and he matured as a person and a basketball coach, our relationship changed.

My questions became more pointed and he provided thoughtful, insightful responses, instead of rants. I came to appreciate Boeheim’s true brilliance as a coach, program builder and sustainer.

Through his wife, Juli, I began to see the human side of the man. The curmudgeonly wall he had erected to keep the media out began to crumble and I discovered not only a devoted husband and father, but also someone who was remarkably committed to giving back to his school and his community. This mellowing is largely attributable to the impact Juli and their kids have had on him. Undoubtedly, his bout with prostate cancer also changed the way he views life and ramped up even more his zeal to raise millions for “Coaches vs. Cancer.’’

Thirty-two years and 800 victories later, I see a man who hasn’t changed, yet has changed greatly.

He can still be prickly towards the media – especially those poor young reporters who must go through the same rite of passage that I and many others were forced to experience. And his competitive juices still flow like whitewater rapids on game nights. (If you don’t believe me, just ask his players and the referees.)

But I also see a man more comfortable in his own skin.

Like many of my classmates, I sold him short way back when. I got caught up with the cover of the book, rather than the contents.

As the 65-year-old coach continues his journey toward more basketball milestones, SU fans should be grateful he eschewed offers to coach elsewhere through the years and remain true to his school. The university and the Syracuse community are better places because he decided to stay put.

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Like my friend and former newspaper colleague, Bob Matthews, I’m baffled why so many non-veterans get Veterans’ Day off, while so many people who served time in the Armed Forces have to work. Why not make it a holiday where only veterans get the day off?

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I know it’s only November and a lot of Rochesterians aren’t in the mood for hockey just yet, but you’d think the Amerks' record-tying win streak would have enticed more fans to catch a glimpse of history. Management has gone out and put a great product on the ice. Now, it's up to Rochester's hockey fans to support that product.

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It was good to see Marv Levy join the parade of ex-coaches in those entertaining Coor’s beer commercials. But it’s too bad they couldn’t have used some of Marv’s more entertaining sideline rants - the non-profane ones, of course. My all-time favorite game-day Marvism was when he yelled “You over-officious jerk’’ at the referee.

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By the way, did you catch Marv shouting “Come on, Todd’’ in that commercial? It obviously was a reference to Bills quarterback bust Todd Collins, who by the way is now 38-years-old and still drawing an NFL paycheck as a backup QB.

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Don’t know about you, but my New York State license plates are in good shape. So why am I and millions of other New York drivers with perfectly good plates being required to buy new ones in 2010? Why to raise another $120 million for our dysfunctionally governed state, that’s why.