Wave and weight of success crash like kahuna into a seawall

Journey - "Don’t Stop Believing" - Cape girls' lacrosse is a place where the wave and the weight of historical success crash into each other like a kahuna into a seawall. Cape’s 2014 team, facing a rugged schedule, has dropped consecutive close games to Manheim Township and Worcester, and still must deal with Queen Anne’s County and Bishop Ireton and a tough road game at Sts. Peter and Paul. And Delaware side teams are just grinding their teeth wanting to be the first in state teams to get Cape in five years. A crew of graduates never lost a game in Delaware or a state title and say out loud, ”I’d hate to be on a Cape team that doesn’t win it.” That all goes with the sprint turf territory; it’s the price of playing lacrosse for Cape. “Some will win, some will lose; some were born to sing the blues.”  The quest to be the best and stay the best is no easy road. If it were, it wouldn’t be any fun.

Cliff divers - The Cape baseball team out in Hawaii sent back still pictures of players who had hurled themselves off a cliff - or escarpment, as we say in Geography for the Criminally Insane - into the ocean way below. Now if I were the principal and saw that, I would freak, mostly because I was a principal. But after seeing the shots, I realized the photos were taken by a parent, which begs the question, “If your mom told you to go jump off a cliff, would you do it? You would?”  “If she told you to clean your sister's room? You wouldn’t?” Cape lost an April 19 Saturday game to Kapaa High School but handled it fine and actually did want to go jump off a cliff.

Guys and garages - My 34-inch full-aspect high-definition Sony CRT 200-pound garage television has de-digitized and “swallowed the dust,” along with a lot of cobwebs and bugs. Do I need a big television in the garage? Define "need"! Do you need 1080p when channels only broadcast in 720p?  And why do you know anything about refresh rates - just because you watch a lot of sports? I saw a guy rolling a cart toward the Walmart checkout line with a 52-inch Vizio and 11 packs of Twizzlers.  I told him, ”Thank you, real guys are still out here.”

Sharecropper mentality - I was listening to the Mad Dog channel satellite radio with some obnoxious and loud know-it-all young white guy who never played a sport being the ultimate authority on whether young players should bolt to the NBA after one year of college basketball.  An older black man called in and called him part of the sharecropper conspiracy and asked him, "Where is the last time some white person left millions of dollars sitting on a table?" The caller continued, "You take the money when it’s there; why risk injury making money for some college?" I found the caller refreshingly different, but the host just drowned him out then hung up. Talking loud and fast doesn’t make a person any more right or any less wrong.

Early retirement - Back a bunch of years ago, the state of Delaware offered teachers five free years toward retirement, and most took it, saying, “I love what I do, but it’s a deal on the table I have to take.” Jumping to the NBA after freshman year of college is more enticing than five years on a pension.  Here’s the question: Would you quit a job you love if you were paid just the same not to do it?

Snippets - I have noticed that the nicest people become the toughest people when life throws a bad card down on their table and says, “Play this one, and you have no choice.”  All those people are my heroes. I wish there were a Green Mile guy who could extract illness and pain from their bodies and blow it away. Sports are not a metaphor for life, because life is no game.

Grand Mom Rose: “Young people tan, older people weather.” It’s the sunscreen season: a sunburned back is the zone where vanity meets stupidity.

I like watching the NBA playoffs; the athletes are just incredible - more highlights in one game than an entire NFL season.

The Phillies are painfully bad; I’m going to the American League and watching the Orioles. “Eddie! Eddie!” He retired? “Hulk! Hulk!” Go on now, git!