Billbow Dunning a rock-hard, humble hero, an athlete from Cape’s early days

Fast and rock-hard humble - William Billbow Dunning died July 13, felled by a heart attack or stroke as he was leaving church. He was such a great person. We go back to my first days at Cape starting in August 1975. I wrote a post in 2019 after seeing Billbow at a basketball game: 

“Hey, Coach!” A tap on the shoulder. I turned around and coming right at me from 1975-76 – only 44 years ago – was football player and sprinter William Dunning. I responded without a moment's hesitation. "Billbow," that was his handle; it even sounded fast. We talked as if no time stood between then and now, and when he left he said, "It was nice to meet you." Later, we got together to take this photo and he said, "I don't know what I was saying, it was just so good to see you." Billbow will be 60 on his next birthday. He was one badass running back and sprinter; he could flat out go!”

I later wrote this in 2020: It was the spring of 1976, brand-new track coach from the streets of Philadelphia. Dave Frederick told the sprinters before the first practice, “OK, you guys are going on a five-mile run around Gills Neck Road to build up your strength and endurance for the longer sprints and the track meets where you have to run three races.” Bilbow Dunning, a Belltown pocket rocket, looked at me and said, “All the way around that country road? You must be crazy. Are you coming with us?” “You must be crazy,” I said. “There are wild dogs out there.” Great joke, but they wouldn't go. Billbow Dunning, a 60-year-old grandfather, a truly outstanding and smart person, fit and fast his entire life and staying off country roads. Later I would have his niece, Maine Dunning, in class. We would joke about Little Mom and Big Mom – you have to know the family – and she always called me Pop Pop because I was old enough to have been her Uncle Billbow’s coach.

Guys like Billbow Dunning were the building blocks of the Cape district, bringing the community together. They were kids, yet they were heroes without trying to be. 

Neighborhoods - Cape Henlopen is not about fields; it’s about neighborhoods and the families who live there. I learned that when I first arrived in Lewes. To use slang, ”I knew where everybody stayed at.” I had a better handle on the demographics 50 years ago than I do 50 years later. Just the high school population is almost three times as large, but where does everybody “stay at?” What turf or Bermuda fields they use for practice seems a low-priority question, and where did all the landscapers come from? In 1975, I knew Chris Valenti, aka Shrub Snatcher, because he was a powerlifter. OK, I’m being stupid and obtuse, just reflecting back on old-school Cape and all the teachers and students and their families who built a real sense of community. 

Snippets - The excessive heat watch this week may impact camps and workouts, and then again it may not. Ironically, training and playing in dangerous heat is more ignored by older athletes who equate discomfort with toughness. Heat stroke is no joke, and there is no acclimatization; you just bake like a sheet cake. Have you ever had a friend become so successful that you started not to like them? Nah, me neither. Go on now, git!