Share: 

Savage and Kobasa inducted into Delaware State Athletics Hall of Fame

September 26, 2017

Hornets Pride - I attended the Delaware State Athletics Hall of Fame banquet Sept. 22 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Center in Dover to support my friend Jeff Savage, who was being inducted for his career there as a softball coach. DSU is a historically black college, and it takes its traditions very seriously. I was at an induction banquet two years ago when Tim Bamforth was part of a cross country team inducted. Gerry Kobasa, a former Del State quarterback and a friend, was also inducted this year. Each inductee is awarded a red jacket and is interviewed on stage (a Charlie Rose-type format) by Sports Information Director Dennis Jones, whom Savage described as the “greatest guy ever.” All this happened Friday night while simultaneously Trump didn’t go off-road but backed down his own private driveway, disinviting Stephen Curry to the White House and calling those NFL players who kneel or sit during the national anthem SOBs. LeBron James retaliated on Twitter, referring to Trump as a bum. Ironically, the Alabama crowd cheered wildly, but without the black players on the nation’s best football team, Alabama would be just Alabama. Uncalled-for and uncouth, insulting language that black professional athletes took personally and, really, most black Americans took it the same way. We have seen Trump go after Hispanics in general, then Mexicans and Dreamers specifically (that is an attack on my friends) and transsexuals in the Army, an army he dodged at all costs because comb-overs don’t work inside a helmet. I really don’t want to write about this, but Cheeto Bandito swerved into my lane, and for my friends who are Trump people, I’m OK with you, but if you call me names, I am gone like a turkey through the corn. 

Anybody to everybody - Coaches and sportswriters talk among themselves or with each other about all kinds of side issues as they relate to sports. I don’t work for Schell Brothers, but I think happy is an important component on a sports team, at least some to most of the time. And I’m not feeling that right now. I’m getting the angst and uneasiness vibe from parents and players extended to uncles and aunts and even grandparents on game day. Perspective is the key to life, and still you will get smacked in the face when you least expect it. Trust me, you never need it. I don’t have an answer to any of this, and I don’t need one, but the rest of you better make sure your athlete in residence can take some adversity because it is coming, sometimes for a long visit.   

Sixth Sense - The movie was shot in Philly, and when Eagles kicker Jake Elliott came on the field Sunday afternoon, I knew he was going to make the 61-yard field goal with only a few seconds left and the game tied. What I didn’t know was how much it would mean to me. I go way back, but I’m not over the top. Sunday was a moment unanticipated and yet sensed throughout the stadium. The every down players embraced Elliott and lifted him in the air. Teams are like that, and older athletes are like that as well. Tom Dempsey, a straight-on kicker with a deformed foot - like a club - kicked a 63-yard field goal, but the former Eagle was on the Saints when he did it in 1970.

Snippets - The University of Delaware, the defending national championship field hockey team, lost at home to No. 1 Connecticut Sept. 24 1-0 in overtime. It was the first time in 58 straight games that Delaware had been shut out. UConn outshot Delaware 15-7. The Hens are 6-3 on the season. Maggie Delp (Cape) got a start for Delaware. Delaware will play at Drexel Friday, Sept. 29. The Dragons will feature Tess Bernheimer (Cape) in the starting lineup. Erin Coverdale (Cape) had all three goals in Franklin & Marshall’s 3-0 defeat of Haverford Sept. 23. Coverdale has eight goals in the last five games and a pair of hat tricks in her last three contests. Naiya Smith (Sussex Central) is a freshman at Penn State who is listed as a sprinter on the women’s track and field roster. Delaware Valley University defeated Stevenson Sept. 23, 27-7 to go 4-0 on the season. Tyre Maull (Cape) started at right tackle for Stevenson, while Sammy Mohr (Cape) started at cornerback for the Aggies. Go on now, git!

Subscribe to the CapeGazette.com Daily Newsletter