That name is my copyright and soon it will be my space of emptiness

FRIAR CONNECTION - Robin and his merry men were captured and boiled in oil except for Tuck because he was a fryer. The Friars of Malvern Prep from Frazier, Pa., were at Cape last Saturday for a high-end lacrosse scrimmage featuring powerhouse teams of national caliber.

I just had to tell head coach John McEvoy, because I’m such a loser, that the athletic director, Chuck Chinechi, was a friend of mine from way back.

“He’s not the AD anymore,” said McEvoy, who has been at the school for 20 years.

“True that,” I said. “He’s a middle school teacher there. By the way, aren’t you the Friars that fired the Flyer, Broad Street Bully and National Hockey League all-time goon and leader in penalty minutes Dave “The Hammer” Schultz as your men’s ice hockey coach? The same guy who was on two Stanley Cup teams? That was you guys, right?”

“We had to,” coach McEvoy said. “He was a loose cannon.”

Ya think?

BUILDING BLOCKS - Bill Creedon was my high school quarterback and later went to Penn and set bunches of Ivy League records. He became head football coach at the Peddie School in New Jersey and coached among other notables that one Jeff “Moose” Mohr, former Cape lacrosse coach now athletic director at Delmarva Christian.

Severn School of the prestigious MIAA lacrosse league was at Cape on Saturday, so once again “Big Loser Boy” had to tell an assistant coach that their former headmaster, Bill Creedon, was a personal friend and former teammate of mine. I believe the coach took a break from ravaging an apple and said something to indicate his high degree of interest. I believe he said, “Oh, is that right?”

“Isn’t there a building named Creedon Hall?” I asked. “Didn’t you guys build and name a building after Creedon? He’s my first friend to be Building Guy. How is Creedon doing?”

“He left and took a job in Arizona,” the coach said. I looked off at my favorite building “The Little Big House” - that name is my copyright and soon it will be my space of emptiness, which is appropriate for all those nuns who called me an empty barrel.

SEPARATION SPEED - Stick your heads out the window and bite the breeze DSTP’ers inside public school classrooms because No Child Left Behind is leaving you in its wake. Private education from Baltimore to New England is all about the money, prestige and exclusivity. Teams at Cape for a lacrosse scrimmage last Saturday - Malvern and Severn - pay 20 grand a year to attend during the day. Many others pay closer to 30 and parents are finding the money.

In New Castle County, with all the choices for private education, it’s a wonder anyone is left to fill the public schools. And if a parent has a great athlete you just know that kid is being shopped around. Look at Caravel. What exactly is a Caravel? I don’t know, but they-have become an across-the-board athletic power with great facilities and aren’t sweating DSTP scores - you can bet on that?

HOT DOG RATING SYSTEM - There are no CPDs on the scholastic sports scene. I call them ‘Complimentary Press Dogs’ and I joke because I can pay my own hot dog way, but frankly, what has happened to the weiner? Supermarket-packaged dogs are way too stair-step skinny. Charge $1.50 and go to Milton Sausage and Scrapple and purchase some “two-handers” - some hungry man dogs.

The soft pretzels from the local Philly soft pretzel store at Midway are top of the chart. All that is missing is the pretzel wagon and a vendor with arthritic hands and a head cold.

Parents of athletes in concession stands are the unsung heroes of the sports scene.

WAWA ROCKS - It was a Mardi Gras celebration at the southbound Wawa last Thursday morning as the store was awarded a five star rating for the fifth month in a row, but it could have been the 15th. I mean, what am I, Wawa beat reporter?

But there were our favorite workers dressed in costumes and dancing about and I thought, “How does management get these people to act so happy?” I know, somehow it is conveyed that employees are appreciated and respected which means the morose and gloomy people I encounter in other work places are not made to feel that way.

Administrators and bosses not on the front lines should be interns at Wawa and learn how to treat people and at the end of instruction receive a name tag hoagie to clip on their breast pocket.

I was checking out of a supermarket last Sunday - not Food Lion - when a buzzer went off on the register. The cashier paused and a young boss lady screamed “Hit clear!”

“What?” the cashier asked.

“Hit clear!”

Clear was hit, the noise stopped and the cashier said, ”Sorry I didn’t hear you.

“Didn’t hear me. I said it three times!”

I entered the game. “Actually, you said it twice.”

I always told my students who told me respect was the one thing everyone was looking for: “People in positions of authority from coaches to shift bosses who behave badly teach us how not to behave.”

Back in the way day after three days at Acme Checker School in Philly, I was taken aside and told I failed and would not be invited to graduation ceremonies. “What?” I said and I believe I heard “go on now, git!”

SNIPPETS - Returning from their spring break trip, the Swarthmore baseball etam (6-3) shut out the City College of New York 17-0 on Sunday, March 16 at the Clothier Fields. Garnet sophomore pitchers Jimmy Gill (Lewes/Cape Henlopen) and Zach Sinemus (Short Hills, N.J./Millburn) shared the shutout against CCNY, who led all of Division III teams in hitting last season with .368 team batting average.

Swarthmore freshman Melissa Emmerson hit two home runs and sophomore Kathryn Riley added a home run and pitched a no-hitter as the Garnet swept Capital and Wilson on the second day of competition at the 2008 Sea Gull Tournament hosted by Salisbury University Sunday. Riley is a former starting player at Indian River High School.