Cape district needs a sports hall of fame and it needs one now

BRACKET BETRAYAL - I am a nondistinguished member of an online bracket pool for the NCAA men’s tournament, but I’m such a schizoid maniac that I often root against my own chosen team. I’ll cheer for Belmont to upset Duke in the first round but switch to the Duke side during the West Virginia game because I think fans booing Duke is pathological and illogical and just proves we resent success by smart, athletic and good-looking people which is something I’ve had to deal with my entire life. I mean, why do I hate those people?

I was ecstatic in my attic when Davidson sent down Georgetown, plus Cape graduate Joey Tabler will be a junior and likely starter on the offensive line on the Davidson football team next season. Lefty Driesell and Terry Holland are former Davidson players and coaches.

Villanova was a school that recruited me when Jack Kraft was basketball coach, but somehow my transcript scared off the admissions office to say nothing of my own mother who bellowed, “You’re adopted!”

Samantha Coveleski just finished her sophomore season as a starter on the field hockey team at Villanova.

Actor and writer Leo Rossi is a high school teammate and friend of mine and is making a film about the 1985 national championship team that beat Georgetown in the title game. You know, the one where point guard Gary McClain did an interview with the Wall Street Journal claiming he was ripped on cocaine during the game. I admit he did make some quick decisions with no look passes.

OLDE TYMERS SOFTBALL - The 55+ slow-pitch softball league is still recruiting players. Teams consist of senior coastal Delaware and Maryland residents and retirees and, no doubt, some hardcore unemployable chaps like me who quit softball when open kegs were banned from the dugouts.

Spring practice begins in early April. Go to the website eteamz.active.com, or call Tom Harvey 542-4075, Bo Wood at 945-1849, Archie Alexander at 226-8381 or Bill Neyen at 436-1551. It’s more fun than golf and the ball is bigger.

FUNDRAISING ADVENTURES - Saying no to a sincere person raising money for a worthy cause is tricky because it seems you are saying no to a cure or altruistic endeavor to benefit the society of man. No one wants to do that but hey, if I can raise money for a two-week trip to Australia, I’ll run a marathon while I’m there but it may take a day to raise awareness of the Koala bear’s shrinking habitat. Seriously, this ‘send me on vacation’ up front pledge money so I can raise awareness for a disease or disability has gotten out of hand and turned into its own industry. I think the cause is being obscured by the travel and focus on self like a diet to benefit obesity because I’m fat anyway.

Maybe go visit a hospital - they’re open every day. Talk to the hospice people about volunteering, maybe spending some quality time with a shut-in person who can’t leave the house. Anyway, talking about health care, if the only way to fund scientific research is through profits from races and bike journeys we are in serious trouble. The defense budget, that’s where the pledge money is being squandered.

INNER TUBE WATER POLO - Thinking about nothing to do and nowhere to do it, I surfed the intramural sports offerings at Virginia Tech and came upon inner tube water polo, the retired football guy’s equivalent to low-impact Aquasize classes. I’m going to talk to James Botti about starting a league at the YMCA.

But seriously, we have a school district with no intramural programs and bunches of obese children picking the cheese off the tops of breakfast pizzas.

We’re tearing down a big gym where those requiring adaptive and remediation sports could be playing inner tube volleyball without the tube and other fun stuff.

HALL OF FAME - The Cape Henlopen School District needs a Sports Hall of Fame and it needs one now. Why teach history if you’re not interested in celebrating your own? I search college athletic websites every day and the ones who have it together have a Hall of Fame link on the lead page.

I found a Temple buddy Jim Callahan out of Cardinal Dougherty High School in the Philadelphia Catholic league, who Hook
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holds the most amazing record at Temple. The first 10 balls he caught his sophomore season were for touchdowns. That is great stuff and lost without a Hall of Fame to record it.

Tom Draper of Draper Enterprises and WBOC is a member of the Brown University Hall of Fame for the sport of lacrosse. Check out these 25 athletes who went in the UCLA inaugural Hall of Fame class: Bill Ackerman, athletic director; Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), basketball; Arthur Ashe, tennis; Gary Beban, football; Mike Burton, swimming; Paul Cameron, football; Chris Chambliss, baseball; Elvin ‘Ducky’ Drake, track coach and trainer; Gail Goodrich, basketball; Walt Hazzard (Mahdi Abdul-Rahman), basketball; Cecil Hollingsworth, football scout and gymnastics and wrestling coach; Rafer Johnson, track; Kirk Kilgour, volleyball; Billy Kilmer, football; Donn Moomaw, football; J.D. Morgan, athletic director and tennis coach; Jackie Robinson, football, baseball, basketball and track; Henry ‘Red’ Sanders, football coach; Al Sparlis, football; Bill Spaulding, football coach; Bill Walton, basketball; Kenny Washington, football; Bob Waterfield, football; Keith (Jamaal) Wilkes, basketball; and John Wooden, basketball coach.

That is one insane lineup of sports celebrities and icons.

SNIPPETS - Hot from the toaster of Mariner baseball coach Ryan “Pop Tart” Whibley comes this year’s roster: D.J. Ayers, Gage Betts, Jordan Betts, John Bowers, Jamar Bowers, Cody Dmiterchik, Jake Dmiterchik, Nick DiGuglielmo, Andrew Hynes, Zac Jackson, Brandon Keller, Adam Marcinizyn, Roy Martinez, Brendan Moore, Ryan Muchmore,  TK  Pabon and Bobby  Zakrewski.

“We have 10 returning from last year,” Whibs wrote.  “Our pitching should be deep this year and experience at every position will help.  We will see if we are for real on April 2 when we host cross-district rival Pat Irelan and Beacon Middle School.

This fat raccoon was gorging inside a 25-pound bag of dog food suddenly too good for rummaging through garbage so the household hounds chased his fat butt up a tree growing up through my back deck.

I laser locked and speed flashed him hoping he wouldn’t drop into the light and commence to pulverize my face.

“I’ve got your Davy Crockett hat right here, pal!”