I’ve set these goals and knocked them down

GOAL GETTERS! I was in seventh grade when I put a 110-pound bar on my shoulders and did toe raises through the entire side of a long-playing album. I set the bar beneath my head and accomplished my goal, which tells you something about my emerging character.
I
am a goal guy, if motivated, and it’s a fine line in sports between goal-setting translating into goal-getting, but stopping short of obsession.

For example, you may be able to get the clinically obsessed perfectionist to run the mile but how do you get them to stop?

Would you run a block-headed lab so many miles each day until his head just looked wrong?

I’ve set these goals and knocked them down. I ran a 3:38 marathon and I’ve done the standard triathlons of mile swim, 26 bike and 10K run.

One year in Time Out sports racing series I ran every race (I clocked a 22:45 personal record), only because someone thought it was laughable that I would try. During the last year I’ve covered some amazingly focused athletes but perhaps the ultimate question is, “What lies beyond the focus?”
Gatorade chemist and founder Robert Cade died Tuesday from kidney failure at age 80.

Perhaps he should have stuck to beer?

CRAZY PEOPLE - Inside the sports milieu I am around loud and obnoxious and bordering on stupid people all the time. I remember walking out of a Ravens game and some drunken older guy in a Steelers shirt came out of nowhere, right in my face, and screamed, “Ravens suck!” I could smell his breath and feel the spray of his words. I wanted to lay waste to him but resisted the impulse because there is no future for a funny guy columnist punching a drunken person in a parking lot. The no eye contact and silent rule is always in effect because you just can’t defend against the random act of violence. After last weekend’s Florida State at Florida game a man in a parking garage yelled at the cars ahead of him to get moving. Someone calmly walked back and shot him in the head, instantly killing the man. I hate to raise a question to generate an idea, but how long before a gun shows up in the stands?

WHAT UP? - Last Wednesday the University of Delaware women’s basketball team lost to LaSalle, 54-43 after trailing at halftime 24-13. I would rather cover the Ultimate Frisbee National Retro Hippy Tournament or Equestrian Plow Horse Championships than try to jazz up a game and look for a storyline from a college team that can only generate 13 points in an entire half of basketball. And there are more empty seats at these games than at 6 a.m. daily Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

There are some great college teams out there (OK, there are six), so what is happening to everyone else?

ROOTING FOR RIVALS - Sussex Central is a longtime rival for Cape football and I don’t have the official stats but I think over a period of 30 years Central has gotten the better of it.

The deep question is, “If a bitter rival is playing in the show for a state championship do you root for or against them?”

Realize that half the fans in the home stands are happiest when their team loses. It’s just human nature, like gossip, which is hardly ever positive like someone gossiping about what a great and flawless person you are. I have found in my parking lot, boardwalk and street interviews that most Cape fans want Central to beat Middletown for the state championship on Friday night at Delaware State University. And you can catch all the live action on WGMD radio with play-by-play man Anthony Joseph, who called me Monday morning and asked if I was going to the game (like I was a person who planned that far in advance). The only football Division I state championship won by an east-of-Route-113 school was Cape Henlopen in 1979. Sussex Central has never won a state championship in football. Visit www.delawareallstatefootball.com/index.html for a complete listing of Delaware football champions.

MIDDLE-CLASS MEAN - Sean Taylor was a strikingly good-looking and intelligent young man with tremendous leadership, which is why coach Joe Gibbs had Taylor as a member of the Redskin’s leadership council. I will resist any theory as to why a person like Taylor appeared so angry, but there is no doubt football provided an outlet and license to collision others with certain “rules of war” limitations. I used to laugh at “Leadership Day,” held years ago at Cape, which generated a library filled with “good kids,” but all kinds of people are leaders.

Some people just have that charisma, perhaps leading by example or words so carefully chosen that every sparse utterance is right on point.

A random burglary gone bad inside the darkened home of the hardest-hitting open field tackler in the NFL is where this story is heading. No retaliation hit. No domestic. Just something that could happen to anyone.

SNIPPETS - No one was sneaking up on Michael Vick with 67 angry dogs on his property, is the ironic backdrop to this random-intruder-in-the-home-of-NFL star story.

Actually, everyone should own a watchdog for protection and the sound of your dog getting shot while on in-house reconnaissance should be followed closely by your feet hitting the ground outside your bedroom window.

Go on now, git!