Fields of dreams teeming with teams and fans in the stands

Thursday Night Lights - It all looked normal and idyllic on the Cape campus April 15. Sussex Tech baseball and softball were on the ball fields and the scoreboards were lit up. Later, the Ravens’ soccer team played Cape inside Legends Stadium. The Ravens won all three contests, but there were fans and electricity and lots of action. The Cape girls’ lacrosse team defeated the Padua Pandas on the Champions Stadium pitch. Cape’s girls’ tennis team defeated Sussex Academy 4-1, all courts filled up. Bryan Griffin, the interim varsity head lacrosse coach at Padua, whose team arrived via a top-of-the-line coach bus, looked around Cape campus. I overheard him say, “Man, you really have a nice campus here.” 

Life lessons and conflicting messaging - High school coaches talk about teaching life lessons through sport. Down the road, athletes are advised to stick to their sport and not to use their platform for politics. Last week at a congressional subcommittee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan, 57, an NCAA champion in wrestling 1985 and 1986 at Wisconsin, got after Dr. Anthony Fauci, 79, a former New York City high school point guard and marathon runner who finished the 1984 Marine Corps race in 3:37. Jordan talked about restrictions that violated First Amendment rights. Fauci responded that half a million Americans have died from COVID and accused Jordan of attacking him personally. Sports bios of Jordan and Fauci are a big part of what makes them who they are. Later, I’m watching the Orioles at Texas Rangers. There are no restrictions at the Arlington retractable-roof stadium, and the stands are packed with mostly unmasked fans. The visiting baseball players from Baltimore are expected to play inside a soup tureen that may be a hot zone for a mutated and more highly transmissible virus. The messaging is embedded with conflict. Personal and differing opinions on the subject are unavoidable. 

Showboat - The Inclusion Kid Davey Fred learns by watching and he doesn’t miss a trick, so if you know him, just believe he has you figured out. On Friday at the Smyrna track meet representing the Cape Unified track team, Davey was dead last in the slow heat of the 100 meters, but as he was breaking the plane of the finish line he began to showboat because he knew, “That’s what the good guys do.” Afterward he went along the fence fist bumping all those fans who were cheering for him. Later after long jumping, I asked Davey, “How did you do?” He answered, “Sand!” He knows it’s not how far you jump but whether you land in the pit. 

Proud Momma - I can’t tell you how many major colleges recruited me for football or basketball only to be rejected by the admissions office. OK, I can tell you, at least 10. What would my mother, Dot-Dash, have done if there had been Facebook? All she ever told me was how smart I was and that someday when I found myself I was just going to be awesome. And it wasn’t a pep talk – she meant what she said. Every time I read that a student has been accepted to all 10 colleges to which he or she applied I think, “Well, Wooly Bully for you, and why are you applying to 10 schools when you can only go to one?”   

Snippets - Cape baseball has a big four-game week with games Monday at home versus Salesianum, Tuesday at home versus Sussex Central, Thursday at Indian River and Saturday at Archbishop Spalding of Maryland. Cape track is at Polytech Tuesday, April 20, and both the boys’ and girls’ meets will be competitive. The Sussex Academy boys’ lacrosse team improved to 6-0 under head coach Justin Hetherington with a 6-0 win over Indian River. The Seahawks girls’ team, coached by Taylor Gooch and Kim Raschdorf, is 5-0 and will most likely be 9-0 when they play at Cape on Friday, April 30. Coaches play them one at a time, but sportswriters jump over teams whenever it suits our storyline. Liberty University baseball, now 25-8 with Cape kids David Erickson and Mason Fluharty on the pitching staff, plays at Duke at 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 20. The game is available through the Flames’ website. Go on now, git!