Champions Stadium rocks during Atlantic Lacrosse championship
Some don’t get it - “Commencement isn’t an end, but a beginning.” You don’t say? If there were ever a throwaway line at graduation, that is it. I have always thought to myself, “It’s not really that notable an occasion for a party if you graduate from high school, but if you don’t, that is an occasion for commiseration." But seriously, being the sports guy I am always amazed at a small percentage of athletes who have enjoyed success and notoriety in their sport and who have received all the right messages from adults in their lives, but they still don’t buy into the program and instead set sail into an adult life of trouble and turmoil and hanging over the Friday night fence talking about how good they used to be. It is hard enough to succeed when you play all the talent cards in the hand you were dealt and also have a great support network at home, but if you trifle and expect the real world is anything like high school, you are in for a rude awakening - as when a hoarse Siamese croaks next to your pillow at 4 a.m - but enough about me.
Champions Stadium - I have been to college lacrosse games with fewer people and less electricity than I saw and felt May 21 as Atlantic U13 lacrosse battled Beach in a league championship lacrosse game. And there were younger kids with sticks just waiting to get on that field when the game ended. It was a happening. And I may add, these young athletes can play and they’re tough and it looked to be really a lot of fun. The impact on baseball and softball and girls' soccer is significant, more impact than the other way around. That's not to say championship baseball, softball and soccer aren’t heading to a high school near you; there is simply only so much talent to go around.
Swing, batter - Cape sophomore Riley Shields came off the injured list for the last game of the softball season and hurled a perfect game over five innings as the Vikings ran a “Mercy Mercy, Me” game on floundering Saint Mark's 12-0 to finish the season 10-8. Cape did not make the field for the 16-team DIAA state tournament. Tiara Duffy had a double and triple in her last at bats for the Vikings and will be swinging for the fences at the University of South Carolina next season. Jordyn Virden also had three hits for the Vikings.
Back up to the needle - Flagrant use and abuse of painkillers happened inside NFL locker rooms in the '80s and '90s, and now broken-down men with broken bank accounts are suing the NFL because they were too dumb to know to say no, and there is a lot of money to be grabbed. The NFL is sued by former players all the time because football may be a lot of things, but good for long-term health isn’t one of them. I remember being 38 years old and coaching track, going to see Dr. Jim Marvel and making a discus-throwing motion and telling him, “It really hurts when a move my arm like this.” His response: “Well, then, don’t do that.” Pain is our friend; it warns us to back off or risk a worse injury. Taking heavy-duty medication to play through pain is idiotic. Even the idiot doing it is aware it’s a dumb, low-percentage move, but money talks, and class-action lawsuits don’t cost a dime.
Snippets - Lightning-quick, unselfish point guard has become the most important position on a basketball team. Athletic power forward is next. Big robotic men who can’t move or shoot - everyone has those guys.
Cape’s 2014 fall football schedule includes home games with Milford, Lower Cape May, Polytech, Sussex Tech and Smyrna. Away games are Indian River, Caesar Rodney, Cambridge South Dorchester, Dover and Sussex Central. Archbishop Spalding and Bullis Prep are gone.
Cape field hockey, winner of three straight Delaware state titles, has Severna Park at home Sept. 27, followed by Delmar Sept. 30.
A new boys’ soccer coach to replace retired Gary Montalto has not been named.
The new Dover High School will open in the fall, while the old school will be torn down, but the turf field, track and stadium will remain.
Cape social studies teacher Bill Walls is the Cape graduation speaker next month for the third time, a record certainly never to be broken. Go on now, git!
