Football is a crash and collision sport; sometimes a zebra gets trucked

May the force be with you - A Dover player picked up a fumbled football and changed the direction of the football game. Official Bob Riddach, a 72-year-old ref with 31 years’ experience, used his instincts and chased the play. Somewhere early in his journey, he got clipped from behind, but you can’t throw a flag on yourself when you’re falling. Energy generated is related to speed and gravity, but ultimately it’s about the splat factor. We all can fall. It’s the awkward sudden landing that hurts. In math, it’s E=MGH, where M is mass, G is gravity and H is height. I’ve seen a few sideline sports guys get wasted by a running back rolling out of bounds. In that case, a longer formula is needed. Bob Riddach got back up and resumed the game without missing a play, basically telling everyone, “There’s nothing to see here that you haven’t already seen.”

Mack Bakers - I don’t remember seeing three better and more athletic high school linebackers on the football field than Hertford Gibbs, Vincent Daniels and Nolan Hazzard. They were the standup backers in a 5-3-3 defense on coach Jim Alderman’s 1979 state championship football team. I remember Seaford coach Ron Dickerson scouting that Cape team and saying to me, “Those three backers often line up too close to the line of scrimmage and other times don’t adjust to shifts in the formation, but it doesn’t matter because when you have three linebackers that are that good, they just run everything down.” It’s been 40 years since that trio played defense for Cape, and when you remind them they were possibly the all-time best three backers to ever play together, they don’t look surprised and they don’t look thankful, because you more or less told them something they’ve known for the last 40 years. 

Harry’s jacket - The late Cape school board member and plumbing supplies salesman Harry Moore liked to drive the football and track team buses back in the day. And after the 1979 football state championship victory, jackets were ordered and given out. Harry was awarded a jacket, which he hung in his closet, and there it stayed until his wife Joan gave it to me saying, “You’ll know what to do with it.” On Sept. 27, with the jacket hidden inside a plastic Weis bag, I presented it to Tim Gray, an all-state nose tackle and U.S. Army major who served two tours in Iraq. All teammates from 1979 agreed, “Tim should have that jacket, except he’s too fat to wear it.” Tim said, “I’m putting it in a frame to hang over my mantel. Now I just need to get that No. 40.” Thanks, Joan and Harry Moore, the jacket has found its forever home. 

Cheer me up, Buttercup - Lilly Barnett is a Cape cheerleader, so with Cape trailing Dover 35-0 at halftime, I was ready to put the kitten in the kaboodle and get up on out of there. But there was my cheerleader friend Lilly parked in lane three. With a lens too long, I backed up and said, “Lilly, don’t go anywhere. It’s not fall football season until I capture your smiling face and have to smile myself.” In Sesame Street by the Sea, we all know muppet Lilly Barnett. We know her story and follow her journey. And she’s the one who cheers us up. 

Snippets - Darby Klopp scored the game’s only goal at the 51-minute mark Sept. 28, as Franklin and Marshall field hockey beat Haverford College 1-0. The Dips are 8-0 on the season. F&M beat Dickinson 2-0 Sept. 25. Erin Coverdale scored a second-half goal on an assist from Darby Klopp, a Cape-to-Cape collegiate connection. Anna Harrington scored her first collegiate goal for Washington College, but the Shoremen lost to Johns Hopkins 8-1. Amanda Sponaugle scored her first collegiate goal for the Newberry Wolves, who beat Converse 3-1 for their fourth straight victory. I read a field hockey story on the Christopher Newport website to see how Marcella Sabbagh was doing and at one point it read, “Marcella Sabbagh had an interception and pushed the roller up to the circle before earning a corner in the 14th minute.” I assume “pushed the roller” means “passed the ball,” but I never took a class in sports journalism. Remember the days of moms in house dresses with their hair up in rollers? Rollers were bad, man. Now everyone just goes to the “beauty salami” or whatever it’s called. Go on now, git!