Delaware State football kicks off spring season Feb. 20

Hornets football - An email from Delaware State offensive coordinator Steven Azzanesi about spring football: “We are practicing now and slated for our first game Feb. 20 at Morgan State. We are playing a modified schedule this spring. Our conference split up into a MEAC North and MEAC South. We are in the North with Morgan State and Howard. We play each team twice (home and away). Then, on April 10, we play UD at home as a non-conference game. If we are the top team in the North, we will play the top team in the South on April 17, with the winner getting an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. Exciting stuff! This year will not count against anyone’s eligibility. So if a player started this school year as a junior on the field, he will still be a junior on the field when we play in the fall 2021.” The Hornets head coach is Ron Milstead, who played on the 1995 San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl championship team. 

Hockey dads and wrestling moms - Big crowds with fan support from both teams with non-aligned disinterested fans in between are the best because the noise is collective, somewhere between a rumble and a roar. But the current rules for fan attendance at high school games allow only one fan per athlete and no visiting fans. That makes each voice in attendance audibly annoying because, really, who wants to hear it? I have always joked that field hockey dads along the fence are the worst to be around; they will just wear you out with their expertise about a game they never played. And wrestling moms when they are mad and bad are mostly brutal. They know the sport because a son is wrestling and so did their brother, and they are quick on the draw: “What’s he doing on the bottom, ref?” I counted seven fans at a Cape girls’ basketball game Feb. 5  inside Cape’s Big House, which means some of the home players couldn’t unload a single ticket. Whatever the NFHS Network is doesn’t seem as reliable as YouTube. Indoor was a chore. Hopefully all the winter sports seasons will close out with championships, but let’s admit it – a contagious, non-visible, novel and mutating-to-stay-novel virus that is transmitted by the heads in the house renders all precautions pretty much inadequate.

The great eight - The Washington Capitals versus Philadelphia Flyers telecast game at noon on Super Bowl Sunday was way better than the football game. Alexander Ovechkin, 35, skating around without his helmet before the game, his long salt-and-pepper hair atop that Russian assassin face, was the best athlete I watched all weekend. Ovi has won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s leading scorer, nine times. The Flyers won the game 7-4, the last goal an empty-netter. Ovechkin had two goals and two assists in the game. Scott Laughton had his first hat trick for the Flyers. And most of all, the game was just easy to watch compared to the hype machine that has become the Super Bowl. 

Snippets - The University of Delaware has released its 2021 baseball schedule and roster. Go to bluehens.com if you are a fan or just like to look at lists. Austin Elliott, former Cape outfielder and pitcher, is listed as a redshirt freshman on the Blue Hens roster. He is a transfer from the University of North Carolina. Delaware has 21 players on the roster who played high school baseball in the state of Delaware. Austin’s sister Ryleigh is on the softball roster at Randolph Macon. Kendra Schweizer out of Saint Mark’s is a junior and returning starter on the Delaware women’s lacrosse team. Cape girls’ winter track ran against Sussex Academy in a friendly outdoor meet on the Legends Stadium track Feb. 4. Some notable wins include Aubrie Myers in the 55-meter hurdles, 11.03 seconds; Montana Jones, 55-meter dash, 7.69, and 200-meter dash, 29.05; Katie Kuhlman, 1,600-meter run, 5:49.00; Sadie Tunnell, 400-meter dash, 1:03.00; and Tia Jarvis, 800 meters, 2:32.00. Tampa Bay Bucs head coach Bruce Arians’ mother Kay was at the Super Bowl. A camera cutaway showed her cheering. She has shoulders like a linebacker and is 95 years old. Go on now, git!