Champions compete without fear of failure

Champions Stadium - Step on the track or inside the lines in any sport and you are a champion with the courage to compete, as life is all about coping with the unpredictability of it all. Elena Booth won the discus at the Henlopen Conference Championships. I got to speak with her afterwards, as I went all the way back to her great grandfather Buck Thompson, who wrote a sports column in “The Whale” called Bucktales. Anna Bockius, a distance runner at Padua, had an extraordinary day at the New Castle County Championships, winning the 3,200 in 10:20 (teammate Paige Ballinger, third, 10:56); the 1,600 in 4:53 (Paige Ballinger, third, 5:04.9); and the 800 in 2:12.17. Anna’s paternal grandfather George Bokius was a commercial airline pilot who flew with my uncle Donnie for Allegheny Airlines. Paige, just a freshman at Padua, ran for Sussex Academy as an eighth-grader. Her mom was a Padua Panda. I’m always climbing the family kinship tree with a harness because it's easy to walk out on the wrong branch. 

Toll road - There is no EZ Pass lane to the next level of college sports leading to a marketable degree that can get a young person a parking space in the social network of successful people. The game is played hard and it costs a lot of money, but no one is sure how much and evidently no one pays full price. It's like a Trivago commercial or Bookings, yeah. Prestigious Division III schools cost a lot of money – let's say $80,000 for tuition and board – and by rule they offer no athletic scholarships. Academic grants are bones thrown as enticements because those types of kids, actual student/athletes with strong SAT scores with well-heeled parents, are needed to entice other students to apply. The private school network leading to private colleges is robust. Families are the brokers, and they are good at it. 

USA Lacrosse magazine - The latest national rankings for public school women's lacrosse teams has Cape listed at No. 8; Broadneck, Md. No. 9; and Severna Park, Md. No. 10. Phillylacrosse.com, which includes all teams in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, has Cape ranked No.15. The boys’ rankings have Salesianum at No. 4 and Cape as “Under Consideration.”

Daley Thompson - A British two-time Olympic decathlon gold medalist in 1980 and 1984 is now 66 years old. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Thompson, who had just won his second gold medal, wore a T-shirt that read “Is The World's 2nd Greatest Athlete Gay?” Thompson explained: “The second athlete could be anybody, Carl Lewis or Jurgen Hingsen [silver medalist in decathlon], anybody.” Thompson’s autobiography, “Daley: Olympic Superstar” was published in 2024. There is also a documentary film about his life, also titled “Daley: Olympic Superstar,” a BBC production. By the way, Caitlyn Jenner is now 75 years old. A same-stage interview including those former world’s greatest athletes would be pure gold. 

Ear to the track - “I have my ear to the track in a town where the train doesn't run” has been my motto since the Queen Anne’s Railroad was shut down. Speaking of sports in Sussex County, my position has been: “If you hear a rumor, chase it,” because anyone who knows anything mostly can’t shut up about it. I hear all kinds of stuff that pushes up against the truth, but mostly I just let it sit there not wanting to be a blabber or I don’t want to screw up the process. Let me say this: With the evolving and explaining world of social media platforms, the athletes themselves down through meddle school – or is that middle school? – are great sources of incomplete information, but if you listen, you may just learn something. 

Snippets - The fire trucks are idling because local tradition is if a team wins a state championship, the team bus gets an escort through all the towns here at Sesame Street by the Sea. Cape has three teams that are ranked No. 1 going into tournament play and another three that are contenders. Bill Henry Buckaloo, a three-name guy like Karl Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks, is the beacon whose head is on a swivel waiting for a call to activate the celebration network. It’s good, old hometown stuff. Brackets for all state tournaments are available at the DIAA website, which is a little clunky. You may need a middle schooler to help you negotiate the matrix of tournaments. Go on now, git!