A nomination for an award is its own reward minus the inscribed plaque 

Team of the Year - Two teams I covered this past calendar year are the Cape girls’ lacrosse and field hockey teams. Both won state titles in 2024. Each is a great story, but if I choose to nominate just one for the Delaware Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association Team of the Year, it would be field hockey, because while the coaches were hopeful, the roster only had two seniors; the depth of the roster and dearth of experience made a state championship seem like a dream. There were so many good sports stories, including Dover winning the state championship in boys’ basketball, Caesar Rodney capturing the boys’ Division I state championship in soccer and Sussex Central winning the Division I state wrestling championship. Other statewide awards given out are Coach of the Year, Athlete of the Year, Herm Reitzes Award for Public Service and Buddy Hurlock Unsung Hero Award.  

Double preppie - Schools that offer a fifth year to prep for college have been around a long time. The fifth-year high school athletes came into college as freshmen then began playing under the five-years-to-play-four NCAA guidelines. If you have time, research Bordentown Military Institute. Running parallel to that, the junior college players used up two years of eligibility then came to a four-year program with three years to play their remaining two. The courts have now ruled against that NCAA rule, accusing them of overstepping like a Grambling drum major. And so now an athlete can play two years of junior college ball, then go to a four-year program with another five years to play four. And so if you're one of the red-shirted middle school athletes and follow that up with seven more years, you could be 26 years old and still playing college ball. Call it log-jamming or bottlenecking, high school players will not only find scholarship money hard to find, but they may also not even be able to walk on.  

Meat grinder - The Governors Cup goes to the top-performing Delaware team in the Beast of the East wrestling tournament. This year, it went to Caesar Rodney with 42 points. There were 176 teams represented in the tournament; the Riders finished in 42nd. The top five Delaware teams by place were: Caesar Rodney with 42, Salesianum with 43, Cape with 58, Delaware Military Academy with 58 and Sussex Central with 62. Malachi Stratton was the highest Delaware finisher, placing fourth at 113 pounds. Patrick Donahue of Cape, 215 pounds, was 4-2, scoring 12 team points. Austin Guerrieri, 120 pounds, went 3-2, contributing 8.5 points.

Old Yellers - I wrote a column in 2007 suggesting sports fans know the background of the coach they are yelling at before continuing high-volume whining. I was prompted by a couple Cape dads at a Saint Mark’s football game. They were wearing out coach and Deacon Dave McDowell. I told them that Dave lost his brother Larry to the Vietnam War and that coach Dave lost a kidney in high school, which ended his playing career. “Just know that and continue railing and deriding if it makes you feel better,” I wrote. I was reading about beleaguered head coach Ryan Day of Ohio State. The fan base had been wearing him out. He played and coached at New Hampshire and had two coaching stints at Temple. Pretty sure I’ve bumped into him once or twice. Ryan Day’s father died of suicide when Ryan was 9 years old. Ryan and his wife Nina are part of an organization called On Our Sleeves, which focused on lifting the stigmas related to mental health. But he catches grief at the Horseshoe as chants rain down from the stands, “F Ryan Day,” after losing to Michigan for the fourth year in a row. What life lessons are being learned from sports inside and outside the lines? 

Snippets - I watched the Beyonce halftime show on my hijacked Netflix channel and I was clueless. Add Post Malone and Shaboozey into the mix and I knew I was outside the demographic or target audience that actually shops at Target. There is a zone where taste intersects talent. Not sure that’s what I saw. I cover the sport of field hockey, and I often ask the coach after the game, “Tell me what I just saw, because I’m sure I have no idea.” Cape boys’ basketball is 3-1 on the young season. Three of those games list no box score results on capevikingssports.com. The Cape girls are 5-1. Box score information is available for all six games. It’s hard to have a clue when none are left behind. Cape football has had 16 head coaches since 1969. They are Frank Coveleski, Dennis McLaughlin, Bill Muehleisen, Jim Alderman, Rob Schroeder, Bob Andrus, Jim Leyh, George Glenn, Brian Donahue, Bill Geppert, Sean Brennan, Dave McDowell, Tom Ott, Bill Collick, JD Maull and Mike Frederick. Go on now, git!