Keep on dancing and a-prancing, making sports fun

Keep on dancing - I’ve photographed 10 Temple University women’s lacrosse games this season and easily processed 6,000 photos. I have been to Rutgers, Princeton, LaSalle, St. Joe’s and Georgetown. The new scoreboard technology jumps out, from digital replays to the reverberating music. The young women often break into dance during warm-ups, and they’re athletes so they can do all the dances with rhythm. The other have-fun-out-there moment is, after a goal, the scorer drops her stick to be checked by the ref, and there is a group hug and circle of consolation at the other end. The game looks like fun because fun is built into it. Georgetown and Princeton are incredible campuses. I would have been honored to skip classes at either one of them.      

Swallowing stories - Maybe as you get older, your head gets bigger because you swallow more stories than you tell. The good thing about writing is you can’t see the people who aren’t paying attention. Most things I’m not good at, but I can tell stories better than most. And so I have a job listening to stories told by others, and sometimes I add my own to commiserate and ramp up the game a little. Seriously, it takes a great storyteller to step back and listen. I have tons of advice for young athletes, but mostly I spare them, encouraging kids to spin their own yarns.

Forever young and dumb - I emerged from the Cape baseball dugout after five innings last Thursday with my big, overcompensation camera slung over my shoulder. I said to Billy Savage, who has sons Parker and Zach on the team: “God, I feel like I’m in high school. I had to get out of there.” Billy said: ”It keeps you young.” If that’s the case, I’m like forever 15. Later, I told my wife: “I’m at the end of the dugout like a big water cooler, and the players are who they are. I must say, they are hilarious and are not inhibited or restrained around me in any way.” Susan said, “That’s because they trust you.” Susan has always seen what’s best about me, and I must admit a few generations of Cape kids have done the same. Not much has changed. It makes my life easy and keeps me young. I’m about a year shy of a driver’s license.

The Burgess - The Keith S. Burgess Track and Field Invitational was held at Polytech April 1. There were 10 boys’ teams. Cape finished ninth with 15 points. The top three were Caesar Rodney, 159; Dover, 126; and Polytech, 125. Cape can still coach them up, it’s just that many major athletes aren’t coming out. The coaching cooperation needed for two-sport athletes has mostly gone away. Ben Ashby, new to track and field, picked up a third in the long jump with 19-feet-11-inches, which will help him more on the football field than tricep extensions in the weight room. The Vikings also picked up four points in the 4-by-800 (Cesar Campos, Jordan Clark, John DiStefano and David Smith). Dante Jacquet placed sixth in the 300-meter hurdles at 44.2. The Cape girls placed fifth out of 11 schools with 68 points. Caesar Rodney led the way with 170 points, followed by Dover with 145. Ce’yra Middleton won the shot put with 36-feet-10-inches, while Mackenzie Parker placed third with 32-feet-6-inches. Parker and Middleton also got second and third in the discus. Olivia Brozefsky placed third in the 1,600 at 5:39, and fourth in the 800 in 2:35.

Snippets - Nolan Brown shot a 34 versus Caesar Rodney at Kings Creek, good for medalist honors, but the Vikings lost to the Riders 158-175. That is 2-under par. Not too shabby for a player’s first year on the team. Dawn Staley, 46, coached the South Carolina Gamecocks to the NCAA championship of women’s basketball. She is from North Philly and went to school at Dobbins Tech, which is located at 21st and Lehigh, then went to UVA. She was head coach at Temple for six years - 2000-06 - and made the NCAA tournament all six years. Staley mentioned Temple three times in her post-game interview and has kept most of her staff from those years. She is a loyalist who sprang from the badlands to the big time. Tyler Whitman, a state champion golfer while at Cape, once shot a 29 at The Rookery and 31 at Wild Quail. Tyler later golfed for the University of Maryland.

Go on now, git!