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Back in the frame. Back in the game

October 17, 2017

Back in the frame - I ventured out to photograph the Herring Point 5K and 10K Oct. 15. It was my first time out with the camera since the tragic death of son Tom. A small race in a beautiful setting with God’s grey ocean providing the beat that moves us all. Arturo Castillo was the first to come hug me. Later it was his wife Stella and daughter Roxy. Every hug and handshake lands the same. People are right, "There are no words." But here by the sea, "we" really do love each other and don't mind expressing it. People have shared stories and also shared struggles. Grandmom Rose: "It's OK to be sad. It’s never OK to mope." People will follow your lead. If you're OK, then we all are OK.

Sports and sobriety - I took a course once called school and society that was so tediously boring, I changed my major from education to anthropology. In many ways, I have been an educational anthropologist throughout my career. I have been sounding the alarm for years to hold athletes accountable for sobriety and breaking the culture that getting drunk or high on weekends and still calling yourself an athlete just doesn’t jibe. In college, it’s what I call the red cup crowd: the athlete works out early, perhaps has study halls, follows good nutrition and then gets ripped on weekends. Most pull out of the power glide toward the addiction runway, but obviously some don’t. It’s my theory that athletes who are conditioned to get after goals 100 percent make the worst addicts, as they instinctively strive to be the best. 

Solace of the soul - I watch baseball when my soul is unsettled. There is a level of pace and patience that doesn’t exist in other sports. Every pitch and swing of the bat, along with every ball put in play that must be handled, has a degree of artistic poetry. I may switch for five minutes to a political show, just to see if anything has improved, but as you know, it’s still junior high in the American political realm while the rest of the world has gone to the middle school concept. When did we begin treating each other so harshly?

Ali! Ali! Talking Turkey! Cape’s 11-1 soccer team will host Caesar Rodney (8-2) Oct. 17 at Champions Stadium in a game likely to determine the Henlopen Conference Championship. Back before the magic carpet covered the Cape pitch, assistant coach Ali - a former starting goalie on the Turkish National Team - was standing in for Randy Redard who was serving a one-game suspension. Bud Hitchens was the athletic director and was there on the sidelines. In a scoreless second half, deep in the game, a CR striker was pulled down - or took a dive - and the Riders were awarded a penalty kick. Ali went full boat over the waterfall of self-restraint. “I kill you! I kill you!” he yelled at the ref in a heavily accented voice. The ref was like, “What?” Hitchens intervened, “Ali, you can’t say that!” The Cape students were chanting, “Ali Bomaye! Ali Bomaye!” taken from the Ali/Foreman fight, which literally means “Ali kill him!” It was so much fun, but the CR player made the kick and the Cape quest for a conference championship continued unfulfilled.

Cape volleyball at SAS - Cape’s volleyball team dropped the first four games of the season and has since won seven in a row. This Tuesday, the Vikings play at Sussex Academy (9-1). The Seahawks are coached by Hailee Gooch, Brad Walker and Briannon Troyer, and I am simply not allowed to root against any of those three people. The Vikings will be the best team the Seahawks have played this season, but 9-1 ain’t no joke. It should be a great matchup.

Snippets - Olivia Brozefsky set a Cape cross country school record over the 5K distance by running 19:16.5 at the Killens Invitational, breaking the record of 19:27 set by Rebecca Pepper Oct. 16, 2009. Ali Coning also broke 20 minutes in 2009, running 19:29. The surf is up, or if the surf is rough in October, it brings out surfers, some separated by 50 years. If Cape had waves year-round, there wouldn’t be enough athletes left for soccer and lacrosse. Go on now, git!  

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