Tweety and Adele: two of the best-ever athletes at Cape
Ain’t she Tweety - I met Diane “Tweety Bird” Travis (only do maiden names) in the parking lot prior to the Oct. 9 field hockey game honoring coach Carolyn Ivins. Travis was wearing her 1979 state championship jacket. Travis isn’t a no-carbs, low-fat, too-gaunt-for-prime-time person, but rather still the broad-shouldered action figure who would run over her grandmother’s head if it were in the way of her scoring a field hockey goal. I was immediately playing defense with Travis, but slowed her down long enough for a “Tweety becomes Mary Poppins” photo. Diane has that "play it forward" high-energy personality, same as it ever was. During her three years ('77-'79) playing for Ivins, Diane scored 74 goals, including 35 in 1979. When old white guys get tired of inducting each other into sports halls of fame, someone should look to Diane Travis, one of the fastest and most aggressive and make-no-excuses women ever to light it up on the high school sports scene.
Adele - No, I’m not talking some fat blues singer “rolling in the deep.” Locally, Adele means one of Cape’s greatest athletes of all time, Adele Mears. Adele played all high school sports at the highest level, then went on to Old Dominion, where she was on two national championship field hockey teams and a 1983 first-team college All-American. The Lady Monarchs won titles in 1982-83-84 with a combined record of 67-1.
Ricky, Don’t Lose That Number - Justin Lopez is Cape football’s leading scorer this season, wearing No. 22. Sammy Leggins wore that number in 1977; then Elijah Worthy, former Gatorade Player of the Year for Cape; then Tykee Perry, great player - too small, he was always told, but went on to play and graduate from Wesley. No. 22 is a sacred and storied number for Cape football and should never be retired; it belongs in the game but should be carefully handed over when Lopez graduates.
Waiver watching - Most times when scholastic student athletes transfer from one school to another, they do so for their own “insider family” reasons, and no one cares if the student is a top-notch trigonometry student taking up a seat in an Advanced Placement class. But if the kid excels in a sport, better watch out, because here come the rules regarding transfers: Adults with 2.2 undergraduate GPAs try to sound like lawyers, and some actually go after a kid who is attending another school and having a great time doing it. There is no chance that I would ever yank the rug from under a high school kid; I wouldn’t care if he/she were living with a fictional relative from a comic strip. I’m just some guy with a sports column. I can see the need for certain waiver requests to be denied by DIAA, but coming after a kid who has long since left your program - that’s a story where all the players need laser lights beamed down on their rule-mongering heads. By the way, my inspiration to “go off” on this has nothing to do with Cape. I’m an advocate of athletes because that is my world.
Snippets - The 3-on-3 basketball challenge is Saturday, Oct. 20, in the Cape gym. This goes from elementary up through open division and costs $40 per team with four games guaranteed. Call coach Steven Re at 410-430-7852 or email him at steven.re@cape.k12.de.us. Hey, coach, get a real email address! Cape’s Legends Stadium has become like a Quaker Meeting House commons area during the fall and spring. The unsung hero for the incredible friendly layout of the new Cape campus is retired Assistant Superintendent Janice Hanwell, who had the talents and vision - not to mention power - to ignore insights and inputs from fly-by-night architects such as myself. Eric Ziady, 47, is the new athletic director at Delaware. He comes after serving as an assistant at Boston College and Northeastern University. I wonder how many times I’ll be introduced before he imprints “Fredman.” Still working on Carper after 37 introductions; that’s why I’m voting for Alex. “No, I can’t get you Citizen Cope tickets, Fredman,” but at least he knows my name. And Ernie Lopez for the state’s 6th District Senate seat. “We love you guys, Fredman” - that’s good enough to turn me into a Republican. Rauul! Go on now, git!
