Joe Cool, the Hannibal Lecter of quarterbacks
Body Double - Grand Mom Rose: “If someone mistakes you for someone else and you are insulted, just think how that person feels.” An older, distinguished-looking Afro-American gentleman with a voice like the Iceman Jerry Butler looked into my pregame sportswriter's face prior to Tuesday night's basketball game versus Polytech and asked, “Are you Bobby?” I knew inside a gym in his memory bank he had pegged me for the Tasmanian devil of tournament directors, Bobby Jacobs. I told him, “Like a barefoot apostle, Bobby is on the lam.” Once, in Wawa, a woman on a weekend pass from Fishtown Philly handed me a 22-ounce fruity Snapple at the checkout counter and said “Here, honey, they have your favorite flavor.” Then honey showed up in his layered flannel and "every day is bad hair day" look and they both laughed and he said to her, “You actually thought I was this guy?” And then worse, a former student sent me a Facebook post with a picture of the fat guy in a Speedo in the Southern Comfort commercial and said, “You’ve got to admit it, Fredman, this guy does look like you.” And finally there was the cute woman who thought I was so charming and witty who said, “You remind me of the detective on that show 'NYPD Blue.'" Not the cute one played by Jimmy Smits but the other one, Andy Sipowicz, played by Dennis Franz. Franz also played Homer Badman in a Simpsons episode, so it’s all starting to come full circle.
Joe Cool - Having Joe Flacco is like having Hannibal Lecter at quarterback. He’s not going to do Buick commercials like Peyton, saying things like “Orange barrel re-route” or do Esquire covers like Brady. After Sunday's win over New England, holding the AFC trophy, Flacco was interviewed by Jim Nantz. Ray Rice was on one side and Terrell Suggs was on the other, and they were both trying not to laugh because Joe is always full-time Cool Joe, his pulse always in the 50s. Maybe he learned that from K.C. Keeler.
Lame game - I’m a member of the working press, and in theory I’m supposed to have equal access to athletes and coaches. But we all know “that ain’t true no more,” as we print journalists like to say. Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o become national stories, as in “What is wrong with these clowns?” so they do on-air confessions with Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric. That is so lame; they both failed the real guy test. Who would you talk to on air to make some confession to the entire nation? I’d pick Alex Rodriguez, because no matter what I said people would hate him more.
Smell of sweat - Back in the days of football three-a-days, I loved the smell of wet practice jerseys in the morning in some dank football camp locker room. It meant hard work, “no fat gut, no glory.” Most guys had canvas jerseys washed once every two weeks - they just took too long to hang dry - everyone’s back had more whitecaps than the Delaware Bay during small craft warnings. You pop my back and I’ll pop yours was a team-building activity. Now at fitness centers, it's water jugs and everyone wiping down equipment with disinfectant, but my olfactory memory recognizes the familiar smell of sweat - just wish we had some of these women on our undersized line to get our running game going. Sure, I’m kidding - can’t a guy make a joke around here?
Snippets - Spring sports are on deck. Athletes, beware of adults who tell you what not to play.
Henlopen Conference Indoor Track Championships are scheduled for Friday, Jan. 25, at the Worcester Rec Center in Snow Hill, Md., and with below-freezing temperatures and snow in the forecast, what is the chance of it happening? Back in 1977, I took a Cape team to an indoor track meet at Widener in a Big Yellow Taxi through an eight-inch snow event. We arrived early; so did coach Bill Degnan and his Woodbridge team. No upstate Delaware teams came, so the meet was cancelled. Downstate we are not brave, just bored.
Go on now, git!
