A brave young boy on a soccer field is a hero to us all
Heartwarming - Saturday morning soccer at H.O. Brittingham, parents and grandparents settled in lawn chairs watching 8 and under children, girls and boys, playing the freest, friendliest and purest of all sports.
Young Kenny Stevenson, 7 years old, scored a left-footed goal that was special. The Tuesday before, Oct. 11, his younger sister Grace, just 5 years old, “gained her wings” as was published in her obituary. I taught Cherie Ockles Stevenson, Grace's mom and Ken, the father. They were at Saturday soccer along with grandparents and aunts embracing life and hope realizing the five years they had with Grace, a child born with a compromising and deteriorating medical condition, who wasn't supposed to survive even one year, were a gift.
There was a visitation at Short's Funeral Home on Sunday morning and there was 7-year-old soccer star Kenny standing in the receiving line next to his mom with his little sister Grace looking asleep and at peace behind him. A brave young boy and a hero to me, as are Cherie and Ken and the entire extended family and they know I mean it - we all mean it.
One-gallon donor - Yes, it does sound like three words in the opening sentence of a really bad limerick, but as most of my friends get inducted into various sports halls of fame I got my Blood Bank of Delmarva Certificate of Appreciation for outstanding community service in recognition as a one-gallon donor. My O-negative self is a member of the Lifesavers Club, and my blood runs through the veins of strangers who don't understand why they are suddenly cracking wise and telling “them dumb old dry jokes” as my students called them.
Good game bad game - Friday night's Cape homecoming overtime loss to Dover 55-54 was an outrageously ridiculous high school football game. I don't recall ever watching a team score 54 points in a game only to lose it at the end.
“God sometimes toys with us, playing his own games,” Grandmom Rose used to say. I have seen every Cape game since I came to Lewes in 1975, a simpler time, when my next-door neighbor, a woman who owned a fat dachshund named Scooter that slogged freely around town with two links of a broken chain on his collar, came out onto the street one Saturday night drunk, with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a loaded pistol in the other, which she shot into the air, and a diapered pet monkey on her shoulder.
Back to the game. Some thought it was great and wildly entertaining; I, on the other hand, found it annoying. I've heard of the no-doubles defense in baseball, but never the no defense doubled in football.
Every Cape stellar defensive play was followed by a better Dover offensive play. Cape went for two in 2000, trailing Dover 28-27 in the final minute. Coach Brian Donahue gave the ball to Tykee Perry on a sweep. “Tyke on a trike right,” I knew the call and agreed with it. Perry got his pins knocked from underneath him and didn't make it. Coach Donahue later asked me, “I don't know, Fredman, did I make the right call?'” “The sole criteria for evaluating a right call is ‘Did it work? Didn't work equals wrong call.’”
In a 1976 overtime game at Milford, the Bucs' Linwood Bowe, who had gone to Milton Junior High, eluded all would-be tackles on a sweep right on a third and 8 run into the end zone for the winning score. The fence-hugging Cape crew of juiced fans went into orbit, targeting Bill Collick and me, telling us we "don't know what we doin'.” I told them, “We win, thank me; we lose, blame Alderman.”
Title to lose - The Cape field hockey team is the Greatest Show on Turf in the state of Delaware. The Vikings send waves of great and aggressive, talented and fit players after the ball all game long. Caesar Rodney thought it was in the game last Thursday night, Oct. 13, scored a couple and never backed down, but lost 9-2, which is a house cleaning in hockey. Cape improved to 10-0, but I disagree with the logic that a championship is Cape's to lose. If a championship is one team's to lose, that means the others have nothing to lose. And that is a formula I don't like. Play like wet and angry starving dogs off the chain protecting the pitch-get off my lawn attitude wins championships, especially a bad attitude.
Go on now, git!
