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People In Sports

Horse around with your own cart and leave me alone

June 29, 2012

Cheese Doodles - The name is the best and so is the color and as a disgusting snack with no nutritional value whatsoever, you just can't beat them. I like the big bags with lots of air and I like putting them somewhere in the shopping cart where people are sure to see them. When did a community of shopping cart commentators first emerge? Maybe it's a college major as marketable as a degree in sports management or parks and recreation. “I see you're still into heath foods, Fredman. And Vienna Fingers are on sale; I see that caught your eye. Them sausages you got there are good too, way better than hotdogs. Funny though, you're drinking Diet Coke." Enough! Stop! Leave my cart alone. I know all the people running races and going to fitness centers and taking Zumba classes have something to do with unsolicited criticisms of shopping cart selections. Sure there's a correlation between the cache in the cart and body mass index, but so what? Get out of my face before I clunk you over the head with your own chef salad you're too lazy to make yourself. OK, now I'm done.

Race weekend - I will be taking photos - that's what we professionals call them - at the Firecracker 5K at 7:30 a.m., Saturday, June 30, in Rehoboth; the Dave Reynolds Biathlon on the Boardwalk at 7:30 a.m., Sunday, July 1, in Rehoboth; and the Races 2Run Rusty Rudder 5K at 8 a.m., Sunday, July 1, in Dewey Beach.  Wait! How can I be two places at once when I'm nowhere at all? The Rudder 5K with the popular pump and run series attached doesn't require getting wet and bumping into jellyfish and seeing masters runners on the open road racing in Speedos. I think young Gazette Gun Nick Roth will do the biathlon assignment.  It will be “The Quick and the Fred” as varsity photographer Dan Cook is recovering from knee replacement surgery and catheter extraction humiliation. You know what it means when you see a fat photographer kneel down to get a better angle on action shots? It means he never played sports in high school. I stopped going to Mass when I could no longer get down and up or keep up with those who want to be first in all transitions. I never offer them the sign of peace because they get on my freaking nerves.

Rules of Engagement - Rules get entrenched then wielded like weapons; they should all be periodically reviewed by a panel of teenagers forced to convene at 5 a.m. who get to throw stupid cards down on the rules that need to go. Sports at all levels are controlled by the most rules, from the game itself to when and how long coaches can coach to how boosters clubs are allowed to spend money to what awards can be accepted by athletes. This is a summer period when all scholastic coaches can “coach up” as many athletes of their own as possible, but where does that leave the three-sport athlete? Focused and lined up in the loyalty crosshairs, that's where. Most multiple athletes tell me the sport they like the best is the one they are playing at the moment. I know a generation ago women athletes went to college and played field hockey and lacrosse, but now with Division I programs' year-round obsessions, that rarely happens. Grandmom Rose: “Pull too hard on an athlete and you'll push them in the other direction.”

Snippets - The Cape Crusaders basketball program is doing its chicken barbecue Saturday, June 30, on the southbound side of Route 1 in front of Outlet Liquors. You think texting while driving is dangerous, try driving and eating a hot and slathered-in-brown-sauce chicken leg - totally nasty. Sure, I've done it - not as hard as eating an Italian hoagie while looking for the I-495 cutoff.

Football coaches continue to invent what I call dumb lineman tricks because while backs and receivers get to play with the ball in practice (insert joke here), linemen just crash into one another or work on balance and stances and starts and handshake drills, and it hasn't changed much since I pushed canvas water-logged blocking dummies down a 2-by-8 chigger-infested plank held by some fat kid with impetigo wearing a gladiator leather helmet who failed tuba class due to a windpipe deficiency.

Go on now, git!

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