Cross country is the purest of sports, featuring shared sportsmanship
Ninety strong - A couple married 34 years, both on canes, were sitting on a lonely and only metal bench at Brecknock Park in Camden Oct. 21 for their own protection. “Stay there until these high school runners go by or else you will get plastered and, honestly, right now I don’t feel like laughing so hard I pull a hamstring,” I joked. And then I took their picture and told them “People don’t care that much about the runners, but you two on a bench, just something American and daytime television about it.” They laughed at everything because they were smart and cool and sensed I was older than them and had every reason to laugh at myself. Caesar Rodney has a 90-person team, counting boys and girls, which is just amazing. I personally enjoy the sportsmanship surrounding cross country meets; it is the best of all the sports. And there are always parents and grandparents just enjoying the day with everyone cheering for everyone else, from the first to the last runner.
Crooked numbers - The Salisbury Seagull football team beat Southern Virginia Sept. 26, 91-7. On. Oct. 17, the Gulls beat William Paterson 62-33 and are now 4-1 on the season. Southern Virginia is 0-6 on the season, their closest game was a 42-7 home loss to Frostburg State. Oddly enough, there are 18 players from Utah on the roster. Further research reveals that most students on campus belong to the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, so hanging 91 on them seems somewhat troublesome to me. Wesley only beat Southern Virginia 59-6, but is averaging 49 points per game. The Wesley-Salisbury game will be a "what’s up?” game for somebody.
Sports ranting - Sports radio and some TV panel shows are all about the prolonged rant on a particular subject. All I can think is it must be what the consumer wants. I find it totally obnoxious, and if I were an athlete I would come after these bozos the first time they stuck a microphone in my face. “Did you ever play this sport? How about any sport? And I’m curious, are you a college graduate and what was your GPA? How did you get your job and was a relative involved? Everyone knows how much I make, so what about you? What does a jaw flapper whose job is to rant about others make in a year?” I don’t wonder why athletes don’t like the media because many of them are not very likable.
Acting or laxing - My granddaughter Lina, who is 8 years old, just played Lucy in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” presented by the Second Street Players at the Riverfront Theater in Milford. Lina landed a major part that required her to speak in a British accent.
Lina plays Atlantic Lax in the spring and will also try out for the spring production. Acting or laxing, an early life decision for an 8-year-old, because you just can’t miss practice and expect to play or be in a play and expect to miss rehearsal.
Snippets - The National Letter of Intent early signing period for student athletes enrolling for the 2015-16 school year is Nov. 11 through Nov. 18. The regular period for football is Feb. 3 through April 1. Go to nationalletter.org if you want to write a college paper on the subject. The NLI program now includes 650 Division I and Division II participating schools. Many NCAA schools are eliminating the SAT tests as a requirement for admissions but the NCAA still requires minimum scores and GPA in academic core courses to be eligible for scholarship monies and participation freshman year. The sport of high school field hockey seems to be falling off at the same time it’s fattening up. In the Henlopen Conference, middle school hockey is on the rise from Smyrna to Dover traveling downstate to Georgetown, Millsboro and Selbyville, while at the same time junior varsity numbers are dwindling. I ain’t trying to figure it out, just trying to get out! How many more granddaughters and their cousins do I have in the pipeline? If the Mets win the World Series, be prepared to be smothered with refracted happiness. New York is just too close to us. I’m reluctantly taking the Eagles - a four-point dog - over the Carolina Panthers for the Sunday night game. Go on now, git!
