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People In Sports

People and sporting dogs - don’t forget to register

June 14, 2013

Snag and wag - Many of us locals have lab-type family dogs that mirror our own lifestyle, living mostly inside, only part of the time outside while riding in the truck to Wawa with head out the window and occasionally rolling in a newly fertilized field or wallowing in brackish marsh muck. Wednesday it was Babes in Lab Land at the Fred Shed with Lina 6, Will 4, Meredith 2 and Baby James, a newly crowned creepy crawler. James went under the kitchen table where Darby’s air-conditioned head was pancaked over the floor vent.   The dog suddenly came up on out of there bringing with him the stupid floor register that had gotten snagged on his collar buckle. James got metal-headed as Darby sprinted past him, didn’t know what hit him, after all he doesn’t even talk yet. Lina talked a lot about how watching a 100-pound dog sprinting into walls and tearing up Iranian rugs frightened her. Later a one-in-a-trillion coincidence of confluences jumped off as old Jesse stuck her head into an open dishwasher to clean off plates - such a pig - and her collar snagged on the bottom rack. The yelping and racket that ensued made head banger music sound like classical. There were knives and forks and plates crashing into cabinets. My favorite coffee mug bounced off my shin. I finally got her free and the old dog gives me a look like, “What’s the matter with you?” like somehow I was the one running around the kitchen with a rack of dirty dishes and flatware stuck to my collar. “Sporting dogs” is the answer if you're asking, “What kind of sports column is this?"

"Tough Enough?"
- Yes, you know the song by the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Well, the keyboard player is Junior Brantley, and my great-niece Jackie is engaged to his son, so that makes me cool. I grew up Catholic in the '60s, was taught that Protestants were misguided but it wasn’t their fault because they didn’t know any better. But if I became a doubter I would go straight to hell. I also played football and was taught that young men who didn’t weren’t tough, except most of the kids in my school who could fight along with public school Protestant kids who hung out at diners didn’t play sports, having learned true violence from watching alcoholic rumbles at family barbecues. I thought of this as five high schools produced 235 athletes for an NFL skills camp. Football attracts the most diversity of talent and the toughest kids, and that translates to the other school sports, all of which could use more football kids. Grand Mom Rose: “Young men need to rock and be rocked, to crash and collide into one another, to acquire territory and defend turf, otherwise it's just tennis.”

Snippets - The 2013 Coastal Basketball Academy sponsored by the Cape Henlopen High School Boys' Basketball Club and Cape Crusaders is Aug. 5 through 8 at Cape. The K through grade 4 division runs half-day and fee is $75.  Full day grades 5 through 8 is $150. Contact coach Steve Re at 1-410-430-7852 or go to capecrusaderbasketball.com.

The girls' Lewes Lacrosse Club will play games on Tuesday nights at Champions Stadium from June 18 through July 23. Grades 9 to 11 will play at 6 p.m. followed by seniors and grads at 7 p.m. There is a $40 fee for the season. Show up 30 minutes early on June 18 to take care of registration.

The P.J. Viking Lacrosse Camp for girls entering the fifth through ninth grades will run from 9 a.m. to noon, Tuesday to Thursday, June 18 to 20, at Cape.

The Cape football team boasts its strongest team in history with 14 players who can bench 300 pounds. That’s a long way since Vada Sample was the only guy on a 1987 team that went 7-3.  

The 58th Annual DFRC Blue Gold All-Star football game is Saturday, June 22, at the University of Delaware Stadium. My grandson Davey is a buddy to Diaz Nardo for the game, so I guess he’ll be wearing a gold jersey around for the next 50 years.

Stan Coveleski from Shamokin, Pa., is in the baseball Hall of Fame; he played for the A’s, Indians, Senators and Yankees 1912-28. Stan passed away in 1984. He was a five-time 20-game winner and threw three complete games for the Indians against the Dodgers in the 1920 World Series. I want to make him Relative of the Week, figuring he has to be related to our local Coveleskis, even if they don’t know it. Meet me at ancestry.com.

Go on now, git!

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