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Hair of the Dog 5K and 10K on New Year’s Day

December 27, 2016

Miscalculation - Football teams do not practice real-situation football. We all know about clock management and saving timeouts, but virtually no time is spent on how not to score too soon when points are needed to win. Baltimore had the game in hand versus the Steelers, trailing 24-20 with third and 1 from the 10-yard line and 1:25 left in the game. University of Delaware’s Joe Flacco was carving up the Steelers’ defense like a Christmas turkey on the final drive. He handed the ball to bruising fullback Kyle Juszczyk (Harvard) who got the first down. But instead of going down smartly short of the goal line, Kyle piledrived over the safety and scored to give the Ravens the 27-24 lead, but left the Steelers 1:25 left on the clock with two timeouts to travel 75 yards to score a tying field goal or a winning touchdown. And the Steelers scored the winning touchdown with nine seconds left and no timeouts on a pass to Antonio Brown, who never crosses the goal line but while standing up in the grasp of Ravens’ defenders sticks the ball across the goal line to “break the plane,” as we geometrists call it. The were a lot of crazy endings on Christmas Day. Personally, I think after the two-minute warning, all coaches should have to take off their Captain Midnight headsets and leave the field and allow the athletes to just sort it out.

Taming the talent - “You can’t win without talent, but not everyone can win with it.” Years of watching the Slam Dunk to the Beach basketball tournament at Cape has taught me that the best high school teams in the country are “coached up” and play disciplined, patterned basketball on offense coupled with great defense, and there is no one player trying to showcase his talents for college coaches. And these great teams travel to tournaments to play other great teams, so few players are delusional about their gifts; the good guys know who they are and are not getting caught in the dead zone of low GPA and poor SAT scores. The better schools recruit by their own reputations, and parents want to know their sons are being pushed academically as well as athletically. Eleven Catholic school powers are in this year’s field, another pattern of the last 25 years. Villanova, a Catholic university, won the 2016 National Championship. “Nova” has sometimes been called the Notre Dame of the east. St. Thomas More, a Catholic school in Dover, is following the merger model of religion and basketball. Last year, the Ravens were 15-5 and won two games in the state tournament. 

Weight Watchers - This diet program was begun when a young woman ate an entire strawberry shortcake in the time it took her husband to drive home the babysitter. He’s still looking for a piece of cake. It’s much like AA, except for submitting to a higher power and admitting you are powerless over pizza. Wrestlers over the holiday season have to face the scale every day, and many of the lighter weights who appear to have no body fat, if left unattended, can balloon like fat guys over three days. I’d like to do a research paper on lightweight high school wrestlers 20 to 30 years after graduation. Athletes who fully understand hard work and good choices - and denial - and how that served them later in life. The Battle at the Beach Wrestling Tournament at Indian River High School is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 29 and Friday, Dec. 30.

Snippets - The Diamond State Games girls’ basketball tournament is Tuesday, Dec. 27 and Wednesday, Dec. 28. Cape plays Perryville, Md., Tuesday at 11:30 a.m., with the Wednesday matchup determined by a win or loss on Tuesday. The Seashore Striders Race into the New Year goes off Saturday, Dec. 31, at noon in Rehoboth starting at the Bandstand. Some zealots are pushing 100 races for the calendar year. The Lewes Polar Bears will plunge on New Year’s Day at 1 p.m., at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes. Papa Bear - that’s me - is retired. I don’t have to leave my own garage to get injured. Look for the Prince of Low Tides Greg Mack for instructions and validation. The sixth annual Hair of the Dog 5K and 10K in Bethany Beach is Sunday, Jan. 1. The 10K begins at 8:45 a.m., followed by the 5K at 10 a.m. Some crazies run in both races, then jump in the ocean with the Eskimos at noon because you can’t trump crazy unless your name is Trump. Go on now, git!

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