So many questions surround Cape basketball

I GOTTA BE ME - Several years ago a sophomore class was taking a “No Child Left Behind” field test that counted for nothing in their personal dossier. Kevin “Old School” Young asked me, “Why should I care about this?” and before I could answer “you shouldn’t,” principal Ed Waples walked past my door.

“Tell Kevin why he should care about this test,” I beckoned Waples, affording the opportunity for him to seize the teachable moment.

“You should always do your best no matter what you do and, who knows, some day you may grow up to be a principal just like me,” Ed said with a smile and tone of humor in his voice. “Old School” looked at Ed somewhat bewildered and said, “I ain’t tryin’ to be no principal, yo.”

I ain’t trying to be no principal, athletic director, assistant principal, relative caregiver or legal guardian, either.

Back while I was playing football for Temple head coach George Makris, an NCAA heavyweight boxing champ at Wisconsin, he stopped a practice and screamed at me in exasperation,

“If I had your speed and talent when I played I’d have been an All-American.”

I snapped back at the 0-4 coach. “Looks like you’re having enough trouble just being yourself.”

Then he wanted to fight me and I told him, “I ain’t trying to be no heavyweight fighter, yo” - or words to that effect.

The Cape Henlopen School District is the place to work if you like media focus and second-guessing; that focus is what some may call accountability and others slanted and sometimes vicious journalism.

“Mistrust” is the buzzword of the moment as no one seems to trust the word and integrity of anyone else. I go news side and ask questions but direct answers are not forthcoming. My attitude is I’m not asking smart people the same question twice and I don’t care what side of a conundrum they are burrowed beneath.

The current basketball bollix resulted in games forfeited, which hopefully can be reversed like a pneumatic ratchet. All lay people talking to me about this issue sound like badly educated lawyers, but it raises certain questions for me, the columnist and sportswriter, who covered every one of those games.

Who in administrative authority was standing at the Cape counter in 2005 when Kimberly Snead presented the notarized document transferring guardianship to Dwight Tingle and Tom Pedersen? Who placed the document in the student’s folder? Who took the document out in March of 2007 and placed it next to an awkwardly worded DIAA rule buried deep inside a handbook? Who or how many made the decision “This looks like noncompliance,” drafted a letter to DIAA, and why weren’t those “legal guardians” given a chance to consult and be invited to the July 12 open meeting where this was discussed? And was legal counsel brought in before Cape tossed its own program onto the fire where others make the decision? Something just seems so wrong here, which is why some to several interested citizens in the minority community believe Cape is out to scuttle and discredit its own basketball program?

EMAILS ON THE ISSUE - The first is from Major Tim Gray, veteran of two tours in Iraq, currently stationed at Fort Dix. Tim was an All-State nose guard on the 1979 Cape Henlopen state champion football team. His family ties go back to the beginning of the Cape school district.

“Fredman: If I said it once I’ll say it again, the black man can’t catch a break in this crazy society. Cape, known for their basketball and track and field domination in the state, is once again target as a cheating program. When will this witch hunt to get rid of Tingle going to stop; this man has brought back the swagger that Cape basketball is known for and now the DIAA is trying to discredit the program and Tingle. If the district or school committed the infraction don’t punish the coach or players, punish the administration - they’re to blame not the coach.”

The next is from Kyle White, a cross country and track athlete who was on two state championship indoor teams and whose son Kyle played for Dwight Tingle and is now a scholarship player at Division I Delaware State.
“Fredman: “What is going on at Cape? When did the school (principals, athletic directors) start caring more about their own selfish careers than the teaching and the betterment of students? Don’t they get it? I don’t care how smart kids are they follow the athletes and the coach’s control the athletes. When a coach instills discipline in the athletes all the kids in the school follow that. Tingle is more than a coach. He is a role model to the school (like it or not). This is an indirect attack on the coach. If the kid was ineligible, why don’t they take back his grades and say he didn’t graduate because he was an ineligible student? As long as the kid could play and fill Cape’s bleachers with paying fans he was fine, but as soon as they couldn’t use him any more it's back on the attack with the coach. I thought I would never say this, but I’m ashamed to say I graduated from Cape.”

I'M GONE - Like a turkey through the corn! I don’t like reporting this story, but I will stand up and do my job the same way I have done it for 25 uninterrupted years in this column. I must say that Cape principal John Yore, just completing his first year, was a great hire and he is a super person with all the right ethics and values who cares about all his students and to perceive him in any other way would just be so wrong. John is standing in the flames, but he didn’t start the fire.

Go on now, git!