Americans don’t need a holiday excuse to overeat

Cold turkey - I miss being crazy and running in freezing weather that’s so windy and cold it will make your face crack. Thursday was scheduled to be colder than Klondike Kate’s first date, with hundreds of runners ready for the Gabby Gobble 5K, staged at Irish Eyes in Lewes but run on Lewes Beach, where the northwest winds will kick your butt on the way back, which is actually a good thing. The Pumpkin Pie 5K, scheduled for Saturday, followed by the Sea Colony Turkey Trot Sunday, are predicted to enjoy milder weather. But if you want to catch a cold and place in your age group of infirmities,  go watch an indoor sport, where scores of non-runners are wheezing, hacking, coughing and sneezing in your face. I call it Slam Gunk to the Beach season.

Gobbling grapplers - We all live in America where portion control went out the window like a house cat on the dinner table a long time ago. We are free to eat as much as we want, whenever we want. It’s not the process of eating, it’s the resultant parade-float physique that will betray your ravenous habits. Scholastic wrestlers have weighed in and started the preseason practice schedule. Most are certified one weight class below their weigh-in weight in case they want to drop down and hip roll smaller people during the season. Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas, then finally the New Year, when adults make resolutions not to get fat again. The wrestler watches it all, mostly exerting discipline, because let him not make weight with his 5 percent body fat self, and coaches may say things like, “We’re forfeiting 113 because our guy would rather get fat than make weight.”

All Hall teams - A return to the wayback days of Cape always had me constructing All Hall teams of basketball players, wrestlers and runners wanting to challenge the varsity squads. “Give me two weeks of practice and we’re coming for you,” I’d say to coaches. “We’ll have an assembly and it will be a blast.” Coaches always responded with two words - no, not those - “Go away!” There was more natural talent walking the halls of Cape in the late ’70s into the ’80s than there is 40 years later in a high school with twice as many students. I remember Hall of Fame basketball player Randy “Wimpy” Brittingham and his no-rotation three-ball, and leaping Elvis Felton. Man, those guys could play – only on change of pace day in gym. They just weren’t about practice. We talking practice, man.

The Culture of Competition - People think I have a bias in favor of field hockey and girls’ lacrosse over other sports. I only say people because I’m a sports columnist for the last 36 years, so I’ve had a forum and still do, and if enough people think something about you is true, there is a better chance it is rather than it ain’t. But I’m telling you, put all sports in a drum and roll it down the hill, many young people are getting sick of endless game days and competition tournaments and what many of the moms call Daddy Ball. Each sport has its own subculture; the family has to commit or go all-in chasing the dream. How about a TV show titled, “Whose Dream Is It Anyway?”

Snippets - Cape boys’ basketball has 29 rostered players over three teams, including the varsity, junior varsity and freshmen. The JV had nine, with the freshmen showing just seven players. There are 22 boys on the swim team and another 50 on the indoor track roster. Coach Ellis Gaulden is Cape’s head coach for boys’ track this season. Most rosters around the state have not appeared on school websites. Go to websites4sports.com to check out rosters and results for teams around the state going back to 2008. Solomon Cox, aka “Yum Yum,” graduated from Goldey-Beacom College and is working as a para at Love Creek Elementary while serving as freshman coach for Cape’s boys’ basketball team. Solomon is one of 14 children of Peter and Bernita Boyer Cox, but he is the only boy. The family rents a hall for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve been trying to get a ticket. There is no one who recognizes everyone, but I may stand out as the Arctic Uncle no one remembers. Gobble! Gobble! Go on now, git!