STOP SLUGGING - I want it to be illegal for head football coaches to use the “it was like two heavyweights slugging and feeling each other out” analogy to describe a football game. Heavyweight fighters don’t wear pads or get in three-point stances, and they don’t drop back and punt without serious point deductions.
And some heavyweight fighters are fit, but most are gross washups.
I’d say if two, 300-pound linemen ripped off their helmets and shirts and started brawling at midfield the analogy could work with comments like “two exciting offensive teams that can’t play no defense.” Yeah, that’s what it was like.
FLAT SCREENS - Screens to the flat and middle screens, bubble screens and screens to the tight end, but have TV screens now entered the football playbook? Only if my Sam’s Club self is the reporter on remote location calling in radio updates.
I was calling Anthony Joseph last Friday night on WGMD radio not to comment on administrator salaries, but to give quarterly updates of the Cape at Smyrna football game as Anthony was broadcasting the Sussex Central versus Indian River family feud. I spend lots of time in professional press boxes listening to radio heads give updates around the country, so I wanted to be professional. My halftime update went like this: “After jumping out to a 20-0 first-quarter lead on a kickoff return by Isaiah Brisco and home run balls from Max Coveleski to Zack Wood and Dominique Thomas, the Vikings traded touchdowns with the Eagles in the second quarter with Cape engineering a 66-yard, no-huddle drive just before halftime culminating in an Isaiah Brisco three-yard TV.”
I could hear the downstate listeners, “That’s a big TV, yo!”
SWAY DAY! SWAY DAY! - Norfolk State brought the entire Tidewater Basin of Virginia to Dover last Saturday, estimates of 3,500 to 4,000 traveling Spartan fans. And when 150 brown-eyed handsome men in Greek helmets looking like Seth Joyner (former Eagles linebacker) began to play and sway in the stands, the entire confines of Memorial Stadium started pitching and rolling like a ship in big seas with long waves.
A championship MEAC football game in Dover with the backdrop of an automatic tournament berth and a date with the University of Delaware brought everybody and their grandmother, along with multiple media types, to the show and no one left early when the Hornets were down 21-3 as the clock ticked less than nine minutes. The world created was one of rocking disbelief - on the Delaware State side a disbelief that a championship had been secured and for Norfolk a disbelief that the game had been lost. You can’t defeat a team that won’t give up - you can only knock them out and Spartan helmets don’t offer enough protection against a swarm of agitated and aggressive Hornets.
PORTRAIT OF AN ATHLETE - The post-game tumbling, sliding and Gatorade bath frenzy contrasted with the fallen bodies of devastation on the Norfolk State side of the football field last Saturday went on for 10 minutes with cell phone cameras snapping all over the place.
In the midst of the emotional mayhem sat backup Delaware State quarterback Micah Brown, a freshman from Tallahassee, Fla. who was having a private conversation with something bigger than a football game. There is a serene look on the faces of athletes who have the bigger picture framed and focused. I do know you don’t have to sit in a pew to go to church.
SNIPPETS - Sussex Tech defeated Delmar in field hockey last Saturday night, advancing to the semifinal round and will play Brandywine this Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. on the turf at Dover High School. Tower Hill will play Concord at Caravel.
Indian River’s football team will play at Concord on Saturday, Nov. 17 at 1:30 p.m. in the opening round of the Division II state football tournament. Delmar has a bye in the first round. Caesar Rodney will host Salesianum on Friday Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in the opening round of the Division I state football tournament. Sussex Central has a first round bye.
Practices for winter sports have begun.
Ursuline beat St. Mark’s for the state volleyball championship in a game played in front of 2,200 at the Bob Carpenter Center. Ursuline has won the title nine times and either Ursuline or St. Mark’s has won the title every year since 1993.
St. Mark’s and Padua won the Division I state cross country championships, while the Archmere Boys and Tatnall girls won the Division II titles. In case you are counting, that’s five state titles decided this fall - all won by private schools where all athletes live with legal guardians or relative caregivers.
How bad are the Baltimore Ravens? How about Chris Henry of the Bengals coming off an eight-game suspension for violating league Conduct Policy – “He's a Hoodlum” - catching four balls for 99 yards talking much noise after each catch. Talent rises to the top and often it isn’t just it just is what it is.
How bout dem Cowboys? And why since Tom Landry days are they so much fun to watch when they’re good? I'm not a fan, but if the Boyz are playing I’m watching.
