We are all muppets with multiple personalities

Chrissy Beckman, a Cape graduate and Cape Gazette corresponding photojournalist, is majoring in physical therapy and athletic training at the University of Delaware. Last Saturday I snapped a photo of her wearing latex gloves and removing a bloodied cotton ball from the nostril of Delaware Military Academy’s 103-pounder Jamie Loose. Chrissy repacked the nose and then a coach/trainer dude wrapped his wrestler’s head in the strangest tape job I had ever seen. Loose lost to Zach Howell in the semifinal bout but wrestled back to capture third place in the state. DMA is a public charter school with 540 students in grades 9-12. Everyone has to take JROTC. The Seahawks play in the Diamond State Conference.

Muppet movie - The large village where I live I view as a set from Sesame Street, and we are all muppets with multiple personalities and I’m not trying to change a single person. I sat next to distinguished orthopedic surgeon Dr. Michael Axe during the semifinal round at last Saturday’s state championships at St. Mark’s. I employed the “don’t Axe, don’t tell” conversational method, electing to comment and listen and not get up off personal stuff that even my immediate family doesn’t care about. We got along great, talked about all kinds of sports-related stuff. Axe was the meet director Saturday and has been covering the event for the last 26 years. I have been a non-surgical patient of Dr. Axe twice but I still have no idea if he had any idea who I was, other than an old muppet in a folding chair with a digital camera and a badge. Dr. Axe will share his football stories about his lineman years at Bucknell University. Most athletes embellish their pasts, which is why I always check it out then sit on the real information in case I ever need to pull that card from the deck. Mike Axe was inducted into the Bucknell Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007. Here is his biographical information from the school website: “Mike Axe was a three-year starter on the offensive line and a co-captain of the 1974 Bison football squad. An Associated Press Honorable Mention Little All-American as a senior, Axe was also a Second Team Academic All-American. He captured the George Rieu Award as the team’s most outstanding lineman in both 1973 and 1974, and he was twice named to the AP All-Pennsylvania Team and the ECAC Division II All-East First Team.” Axe will operate on the shoulder of Cape assistant girls’ basketball coach Will Edwards as soon as the season closes down. Will is a muppet who high jumped 6-feet-6-inches when he was an athlete at Cape.

Long-term memory - I have an uncanny recollection of sports facts and wrote a story back in 2005 about a football game I played in for Temple in 1965. Tight end Tom Mitchell is central to the story as he caught passes all over the field in the most dominant performance I had ever seen - so dominant I thought it was hilarious at the time. And I just discovered that Mitchell holds the single-game pass receiving record at Bucknell - 264 yards versus Temple Oct. 9, 1965 - which proved to me in 2011 that I actually did not make it up, that it really happened. Here is the link to the story in case you’re a shut-in or shut-out: davefredman.blogspot.com/2006/05/those-bucking-bisons.html.

Snippets - The Cape boys’ basketball team will play at Newark at 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 2, in the opening round of the DIAA state basketball tournament. The winner of that game moves on to play at Concord Friday, March 4. Milford will host Wilmington Christian March 2, if you’re looking for a closer game because you can no longer afford to fill your tank. The Cape girls will host the winner of Howard at Milford at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 3. Travis Dorman won the Henlopen Conference 140-pound title in 2006, the same year his first cousin, Brian Riggin, won the title at 215. That did not appear in last Friday’s list of champs because even though I knew it I blew it.

Go on now, git!