Sports management requires organization, flexibility and niceness

Sports management - Oscar Madison was the messy and disorganized sportswriter in the play “The Odd Couple” by Neil Simon, premiering on Broadway in 1965. Oscar’s roommate was neat and uptight Felix Unger. The play became a film, then a TV series. Perhaps all of us slide along the scale from slovenly to structured, but our basic personality has tendencies and we are a certain type. We’ve all heard people self-identify, “I’m so Type A and so anal about certain things,” which is academic code for, “I like everything in its proper place, and I get anxious when my life doesn’t go according to plan.” I’m a cut-through-the-chaos, knock-down-what’s-in-front-of-me personality type but a bad candidate to run a Beach Blast Lacrosse Tournament; Sports at the Beach Baseball Invitational; Slam Dunk to the Beach basketball tournament; state wrestling tournament; DE Turf summer schedule of hockey, soccer and lacrosse championship format age-group tournaments; or Little League double-elimination tournaments. The Indian River and Henlopen soccer clubs, I wouldn’t be good at any of that stuff either. I can talk sports all day, but I’m not athletic director material or a sports facilities manager. And that’s why I smirk when I hear someone say they just got a degree in sports management, because unless you have that tightly organized personality along with communication skills and can integrate your own website onto social media platforms, you’re like an NBA two guard without a jump shot. Keep it real, dogs!

No hoagies, no ice - Think Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.” I was sitting under the athletic trainer’s tent on my blue chair at the Beach Blast tournament, a stranger in a strange land, when a young man straight from the weight room popped on by with a box of hoagie halves for those working the tournament. He looked at Roger Hunt and asked “turkey or Italian?” I said, “Imagine an Italian turkey, ‘Yo, how you doin? Forget about it.’” But I noticed the young man glanced at me and naturally concluded “not hoagie-worthy material” and moved on. Later, some big daddy guy came looking for a bag of ice saying “hand” and trainer Heather Heidel said, “Not for you?” because even Wawa isn’t getting up off free ice for some middle-aged guy. “No, it’s for my daughter.” Imagine a one-handed hoagie eater; talk about playing through the pain. 

Healthy choices - I once covered five football games over five consecutive days and wrote that I “bonged” 13 hot dogs over that period, and some readers were aghast, “No way! That’s not healthy.” I added, “You’re right, and I lied, it was more like 19 hot dogs.” SoDel runs the concession at DE Turf and Sports at the Beach, and also does food for three golf courses and two hotels. Scott Kammerer, CEO of SoDel, is Oscar Madison and Felix Unger rolled into one whole-wheat pierogi, which is why DE Turf has the best hot dogs – Scott doesn’t want to alienate his base. “Healthy choices at both places are our best sellers,” Scott said. Great Scott! Where’s my 32-ounce blue Gatorade?  

Snippets - Zach Simpler was the 2018 winner of the Bill Degnan Faith in Human Spirit Award, and he was at Cape Henlopen High School June 24 as the official starter of the 23rd annual Bill Degnan 5K. Zach jumped into the race and ran 27 minutes. Coach Bill died after an attack of myocarditis (virus that destroys the lining of the heart ) when he was 43 years old. Bill was the best of the rest of us from that era, and if you knew him, you know he had genuine love and compassion for all kids and his friends too. Go to dedistrict3.org for upcoming Little League tournaments. The brackets and locations are filled in. Basically it all gets going following July 4 weekend. The Milton Majors 11-12 are the defending District 3 champions and the host site for the 2018 tournament. Is a cardboard boat of corrugated french fries a healthy choice? Black flies are also known as Buffalo gnats, and they bite and suck your blood and transmit diseases. If they hit the beach or ball field where you’re committed to hang for a few hours, the best advice is to leave. Go on now, git!