Groucho gait getting after it power walking

Groucho gait - Not that long ago, I walked 100 miles a month each month for five consecutive years. And now my feet hurt all the time. Are the two events related? Absolutely, slow drive or fast, highway or city mileage, the odometer clicks forward like a bad knee joint. I walked slow, some may say I sauntered, but once in awhile I would get after it and power walk, looking like Groucho Marx on crystal meth. I’d saunter at 17 minutes a mile but once power walked a mile and I was shocked I dropped all the way down to 13:30. At the Dam Mill 5K July 30 in Millsboro, Jan Hill, 58, from Denver, Colo., walked the 5K in 33:16. I was impressed. Her husband David Hill, 65, ran 23:42. He leads a mandolin group in Denver, so I couldn’t talk to him anymore. But seriously, they’re an inspirational couple who vacation at the beach and look for races; it’s what they do. I have discovered it’s what a lot of people do. 

Chapter one and done - Fall sports are close to “on the clock” while lots of local student-athletes are looking down the calendar to late August when they return to school. I’m thinking of all the signing photos I’ve taken each school year, going back 20 years, and how the majority of those athletes were derailed from college athletics and some dropped out of school altogether. I choose the word “majority” because looking at the far side, it is a minority who went to college with the help of a sports scholarship, played all four years and graduated on time with a degree that eventually led to an actual job. Sports and school are tough at the next level, and there is no parent to hold your hand, although your pocket may vibrate 50 times a day.

Weird History - Oct. 7, 2001, less than a month after the 9-11 attack on America, George W. Bush ordered the bombing of Afghanistan, saying the attackers were who the administration said they were, which was very close to the Denny Green quote in the Coors Light commercial, “They were who we thought they were,” which was spoken first in a 2009 press conference after Green’s Cardinals lost to the Bears. I was in the Ravens press box on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2001, when at 1 p.m., jumbotrons across the league showed planes dropping bombs on Afghanistan. The fans in the stadium went crazy. Oddly enough, the first two presidential debates are scheduled to coincide with Monday Night Football. This is no conflict - two TVs side by side - alternate between which broadcast to listen to. We may not understand the task at hand, but we all know how to multitask.   

Steroids and opioids - Muscle builders and painkillers, both drugs readily available on the local black market. If you’re an adult who gets “hooked up” and maybe “rocks with roids,” strength is its own addiction. That is one concern, but if you are a high school or college athlete, the concern deepens because you are a personality type more likely to go all in and not be able to get all the way back out. Is the addict responsible for their own behavior or does the disease model exempt the individual who no longer enjoys freedom of choice? The responsibility and road to darkness start with the first bad decision. Best advice is never make that choice.     

Snippets - Happy 37th birthday to the Maytag Repairman of Cape field hockey, Sherry Swartzel, who faced only four shots the entire 1995 regular season, then showed up in the state tournament protecting her house through a two-day state title game versus Tower Hill that went eight overtimes and was finally won 3-2 on a penalty shot from Shelly Sentman. I get the double S connection for a storyline, but I prefer the Maytag Repairman and Roll Tide (detergent joke book). I have friends from journalism Kevin Tresolini (New Journal) and Tim Hipps (U.S. Army photographer) who are in Rio for the Olympics. The Gazette offered to send me (sure, we don’t care if you leave), but I get xenophobic if I get out of the truck in Selbyville. I could never handle a place where kidnapping tourists is a cash crop. Fall practices for high school sports begin Monday, Aug. 15. Good luck to everyone, in particular, offensive linemen, welcome to the tribe. Chop chop! Go on now, git!