Sports figures Sam Wylie and Bill Mitchell leave the game

Sam “Plukie” Wylie - A Sussex County teacher and coach, a longtime basketball official and local director and coach for the Hershey track meet series, passed away last weekend. I last spoke with Sam at a basketball game he was officiating Dec. 17, 2014. I told him I wanted to do an interview for a Black History Month daily calendar I was putting together. He was all about it, but because we are both moving targets always somewhere involving kids and sports we just never hooked up. Comments about Sam started to show up on a Facebook post of mine from two years ago. A total of 172 shares is unheard of. To know Sam was to love and appreciate his class and gentleness and wit. Beverly Breeding: “He did so much for so many kids. Generations have been touched by his generous giving of himself. An inspiration! RIP Sam.” And Cole Pavlik: “He was one of the best men I ever met. Always remembered faces and talked to athletes on both sides before games. Will be missed for sure. Always has the the best interest of the athletes at heart.” And Haywood Burton: This guy paddled me in fourth grade (I deserved it). He pulls out the infamous paddle with holes in it. Now I heard stories about this paddle, but I'm a young boy from Coverdale Crossroads, no way you going to paddle me. He says, ‘I'm going to call your mom.’ I said, ‘Go ahead, she not going to let you paddle me. She will beat me, but you won’t.’ He made the call and it took all of 60 seconds. He hung up and said, ‘She said, let's make it happen.’ What I didn't know was that he was best friends with my deceased grandfather and they had played softball together for many moons. Needless to say he ‘made it happen’ and I'm better for it. Great man.” 

Bill Mitchell - Longtime sportswriter from the “westside” of Sussex County, Bill Mitchell passed away suddenly last weekend at the age of 67. Guys like Bill are why I became a sportswriter. I wanted to be part of that peer group where writers are mostly collegial, respecting one another while chasing the same story, which we all spun differently. Bill started at the Seaford Leader/State Register in the mid-’90s. He continued to work with the Sussex County Post and eventually the Milford Chronicle and Harrington Journal. “My dad’s biggest strength is he could cover anything and always find the story. It could be a drubbing and he would find an interesting angle. He was so proud when we were published together,” said his son Jeff Mitchell. Jeff added, “One of the stories he loved to tell was about Dave Hearn. Back before Delmar went on that great football run early 2000s, Dad interviewed Dave and was told and wrote that they wouldn't be very good. He would always bring that up.” A tough weekend on the westside to lose sports figures Sam Wylie and Bill Mitchell.  

Cape hockey loses - The Vikings fell to Archbishop Spalding 2-1. The Vikings closed their eyes (well, some) and crossed over the Bay Bridge, but forgot to reopen them until the second half in the 2-1 loss at Archbishop Spalding. Cape had more shots, 10-7, and more corners, 8-6, but they count for little except to explain that it sounds like a game you were in position to possibly win. Katie Klabe scored with 3:57 left to play. Lori Ferguson had five saves in the game. The Vikings lost junior forward Katie Frederick, a 2015 all-conference player who scored 13 goals in 2015, to an ACL injury suffered in the Lake Forest game two days earlier. Katie is the only player ever to get a green card for falling into another player after tearing her ACL. Cape plays at Sussex Tech Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m., in the Pink Game. Green, yellow and red cards are also available.

Snippets - Chairs and carts is where you end up at the end of a long sports career, but you don’t start there. I set down my magic blue field chair by the corner flag last Thursday night at the Cape versus Central soccer game and when I walked away toward the midfield, 20 Beacon soccer players tried to get in the Guinness Book of Records for the most athletes without a driver’s license sitting in the same chair. The following Saturday at Temple’s new $22 million athletic complex, it was halftime and I asked a security person standing next to a metal chair, “Can I grab your chair for five minutes?” He was young and large and looked at me with total disdain, “Go ahead and take it.” I quipped back, “Ain’t nobody want your dumb old chair!” Go on now, git!