Glazed highways shut down Atlanta again
How now snow plow - Listen up, you critical snow cows of the western world: The ice event in Atlanta cannot be solved with plows and spinner spreaders spitting out sand. It was a freaky science fiction phenomenon where nature wins and dumb-butt humans lose. Dogs with nine-inch nails can’t walk on that stuff. I was in Atlanta in 2000 on Super Bowl weekend as a family member of a Titans player. We stayed at the Embassy Suites on six-lane Peachtree Drive. Early in the morning we awakened to the sound of cars crashing into each other. It was an ice storm. I saw Eddie George tiptoeing across the road and almost getting hit three times. I was in the middle of a five-year streak of walking 100 miles a month, but when I went outside I just could not walk. I didn’t whine, “When are you plowing this sidewalk?" I ducked into a big parking garage and walked loops from level one to level four and back down for a solid hour because I’m an idiot and wanted to keep my streak alive. Can people just blame the Atlanta ice storm on Obama? He seems to be the most popular cause of what goes wrong.
Play me! - I had one rule when I coached and only one in terms of an athlete being dismissed from the team: “If I discover or strongly suspect that you are playing me, then I am never playing you, ever." I always wanted to be the godfather and to reserve judgment based on each unique situation. Back about 1979 I found three guys sitting on webbed lawn chairs all smoked up at 10 a.m on a school day. By 11 they were in school, their beady eyes like muskrats looking into a flashlight. I cancelled their contracts and congratulated them for being tossed from a Fredman team because that was hard to do, as I was the Gumby of coaches when it came to flexibility.
Talk Radio - A late Lewes legend rode a bike around town, a black man who just went by the name of Radio. They called him Radio because he talked all the time. Radio was once a sketch subject at Rehoboth Art League, painted by Howard Schroeder, Betty Hessmer and Tom Benson. I went looking for a Radio portrait to purchase but could never find one. I thought of Talk Radio, as there are certain themes in sports that have been talked about since I hit town in 1975. One is how to build a girls' basketball program to compete with the private schools upstate. I conclude the best thing is to move because not many inroads have been made; there have been some surges, but mostly they haven’t endured.
Snippets - A much-anticipated middle school basketball doubleheader featuring the twin Capes of Beacon and Mariner will now be played at Cape Henlopen High School starting at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 5. Girls will play first. Mariner boys will host undefeated Seaford Monday, Feb. 3. Keeping the story short, I’m an athlete who is only alive because I know how to play back, know how to battle and keep a cool head and positive outlook. Two great friends, Tom Coveleski and Jeff Burnham, are playing it forward battling illness. A couple of tough and great guys. I have a quiet faith that they will be just fine. Seattle is a two-point underdog all across the world of betting. That means if some chump drinking designer beer and scooping salsa with Doritos at a Super Bowl party gives you Denver straight up without points, you should take out a second mortgage and bet the house against him or maybe $10, whatever you can afford to lose. The way I figure it, a state-of-the-art swimming pool added to the referendum to build a new elementary could cost the average homeowner another $13 a year on their property tax. I’d love to see this happen, and I have no intention of using it and none of my grandkids are swimmers, but my goodness, we are an aquatic community. It’s all about quality of life and saving lives. Looks like a 50-degree day for Sunday Polar Plunge at 1 p.m on the Rehoboth Boardwalk. Come down and join the Sunday party. Think Holy Roller Polar. Go on now, git!
