Robin Adair steps off as Tower Hill’s head coach of field hockey

Robin retires - Coach Robin Adair has retired as head coach of field hockey at Tower Hill School. Robin is a Cape kid who played for coach Sue Myers before heading to Salisbury State along with teammate Donna Peck. The two played on the Gulls’ national championship team in 1986. Robin has always been straight-up chilled as a player and coach, hands in her pockets, but all the way in the game – she has never sought the spotlight. In Robin’s first three years as head coach at Tower, she lost in the finals to William Penn 1-0 in 1994, Cape 3-2 in 1995 (seven-overtime game decided on penalty stroke) and Milford with two German exchange students 2-1 in 1992. Robin went on to win state titles in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 before losing to a Debbie Windett team in the 2004 in finals. The Hillers came back to win championships in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Robin closed with 10 state championships and has also lost seven games in state finals. Sussex Tech beat Tower Hill 3-2 in 2009 and 3-1 in 2010. Downstate teams have won all state titles in field hockey since the 2008 Tower Hill title team, including Cape with six, Sussex Tech with two and Delmar with two. Cape lost to Tower Hill in the quarterfinals of the 2016 state tournament, which snapped a streak of 100 straight wins against Delaware opponents. Robin was a two-time All-American at Salisbury and a member of the Hall of Fame. She played on the 1986 national championship team that finished 21-0. Robin will be replaced by Meredith Giacco. 

Can’t touch this! - Football requires seven men on the line of scrimmage and five of them are “unskilled,” meaning they are not allowed to touch the football. Run an unbalanced line and a defensive coordinator will start to scream like they discovered the Theory of Relativity. “Unbalanced! Everybody slide a space! It’s unbalanced!” But seriously, high school football is more about recruiting the hallways and less about a middle school program that runs the same system. The game is about hitting, a lust for contact; that is always the intangible, so a soft team will have a hard way to go.

Honestly, I am clueless - I have no concept of travel baseball and softball and what it all means. I have a better understanding of “town ball,” what some call Little League. I have said forever, “Hang a state championship banner in your high school gym; that is something I can appreciate.” And Cape did it in 2018 for the first time in school history, and the fact the nucleus of that team reached the finals as freshmen, the fact they got back as seniors and closed it out was dramatically tough, but not unexpected. The latest run of Major League state baseball titles for Milton and a Junior League Cape/Georgetown state title is tremendous and stupendous, but I don’t know how it will transfer to high school baseball, mainly because no one listens to Al Green records – “Let’s Stay Together.” Teams fracture; some players go to Cape, a few to Sussex Tech and some to Sussex Academy. It’s odd that travel teams are about stacking the deck, while high school teams don’t seem to be able to do that.

Softball ever more strange - The Senior League World Series (players 16 and under) returns to Roxana Monday, July 30, with 10 teams from the United States and the world. District 3 (Sussex County) is the host, so they get an automatic bid. Last year, Georgetown won the tournament, which begs the question: Are we that good in Sussex County? Able to go out and beat a world-class field? Or is the field not world-class? The spring following the World Series championship, Smyrna won the Delaware state softball championship. The majority of players on the Georgetown team are from Sussex Tech, with a couple from Sussex Central and one from Cape. Go to seniorsoftballws.org/DEDist3.html for a complete schedule and rosters.     

Snippets - Cape field hockey has won six state championships over the last seven years, and currently both Mariner and Beacon are without head coaches. I know what it takes to win, and it certainly doesn’t take head coaching vacancies at the middle schools. Slack and get whacked, that’s the way it works in sports. If I’m the general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles, I’m starting Nick Foles the first four games. I mean, what if he is that good? The Philly Special is the best play in the history of the Super Bowl. Go on now, git!