Side Hustle - The Harvest Hustle 5K at Fort Miles Sept. 19, featured runners and walkers with a low-humidity ocean breeze wafting over 16-inch primary battery guns. Max Warren, 40, of Silver Spring, Md., was the overall winner in 20:12. Jamie Hicks, 48, won the women's race in 22:08. Special shoutout to “The Mad Teller" John Schroeder, 75, who took a break from the Pickleball Tour to run 34:23. The Harvest Hustle is promoted by the Village Volunteers, whose mission statement is: Every step you take supports our mission of empowering older adults to live at home independently for as long as possible. “Do the Hustle” by the Soul City Symphony (1975) played in my head, so I stopped off at the Cape Henlopen campus to take some photos of the middle school hockey play day. I had one 25-minute game in me. It was the 10:30 a.m. match at Champions Stadium between Fred Thomas and Chipman. The Freds, coached by Lynn Richardson, are 22-0-1 their last two seasons. Not to engage in hyperbole, but holy guacamole, Fred Thomas dropped 10 goals in 25 minutes. That had players snapping like hot rocks all over the field. Chipman has been 12-5-2 over the last two seasons. Thirteen teams and eight B teams competed on four fields over five hours of play.              

What Did I Miss? - Cape hockey won at Lake Forest 7-0 under the lights Sept. 13, outshooting the Spartans 22-0. The Vikings are 5-0 with a shot advantage of 123-3 over five games. Cape also had a 16-0 advantage in penalty corners. Jordynn Bowe and Grace Hudson have been sharing time in goal. Scoring for Cape were senior Emily Wells with a hat trick, senior Mairead Rishko with two goals and senior Mackenzie Todd with on goal. Sophomore Hazel Mancari scored her first varsity goal. Cape has road games Tuesday, Sept. 22 at Delmar Thursday, Sept. 24 at Smyrna. Cape’s JV team is 0-1-1 having tied Queen Anne’s 3-3 and losing to Kent Island 2-0. 

Mixed messages - I wonder what recovering alcoholics who are Dodgers fans think of those with earned chips in their pockets when they see millionaire stud athletes wearing goggles, shaking bottles and shooting champagne in each other's faces. It looks obscenely pornagraphic and borderline obnoxious. Those guys are kids and some have developing substance issues. You shoot alcohol into an addict's face or pour it on their head and it ends up on their tongue. You know what’s happening later; they are having a good time Uncle Charlie drinking in the hotel bar because they whiffed on the curveball. By the way Roberto Clemente, a humanitarian, did not drink or smoke. Clemente was on world championship teams with the Pirates in 1960 and 1971. According to AI, after the 1971 title, Clemente stayed on the field and spoke in Spanish, thanking his fans in Puerto Rico. Being dry and sober doesn’t make the athlete a wet blanket. The construction worker at Friday afternoon happy hour sitting at a blue-collar bar drinking club soda with a twist of lime, he’s a wet blanket.    

Prediction-affliction market - “Getting home, how can I screw this up?" is a sports book I’ve been promising to write for the last dozen years. The prediction market says I have a better chance buying a dozen doughnuts from a drive-up window than making good on a project a dozen years in cogitation. From Temple blowing a two-touchdown lead in the final two minutes to Lake Forest eschewing the ground game and throwing into Jameson Tingle’s area code in a tie game are just two examples. I don’t know how many coaches practice situational game-you-should-win management. I want the coach who uses Nerd Wallet to buy a pizza making calculated decisions with the game on the line. Admittedly, there is the whack factor – the destiny you do not control. Just rip the headphones off and put down the colored chart because stupid talent will mostly determine outcomes of close games.     

Snippets - Maci Bradford (Delmar) scored a goal for unbeaten Maryland (8-0) in the 56th minute of a scoreless game to give the No. 5 Terps a 1-0 win over No. 4 Wake Forest. Check out Maci’s 2026 roster photo compared to her 2018 photo at Cape when she started as an eighth-grader for Delmar. The Wildcats beat Cape that day 3-0 thanks to two goals by Morgan Bradford and another by eight-grader Josie Hollamon. Jodi Hollamon and Julie Bradford are sisters. Go on now, git!