Keep your shirt on, just change colors

Polashirt - It’s a Philly pronunciation from my childhood – short sleeves, no collar, usually with horizontal stripes. When I first arrived at Cape in the 1970s, the Black students called shirts with horizontal stripes “white boy shirts.” Now as it relates to sports, athletes are taking redshirts (sit for a year), grayshirts (wait a semester), blueshirts (scholarship start of freshman practice) and greenshirts (athlete enrolls a semester early). We know about athletes repeating eighth grade (redshirt) to get advantages of being a year older in high school, and that has become pretty common. And now, there are fifth-grade redshirts, again a year of physical maturity plus you don’t sit out any years of middle school sports. Trending downward, maybe kindergarten “polashirts” are in the future? What happened to the good old left-back kid? I kid you not. Back in 1983, I taught one seventh-grade class of multiple repeaters. I’m still friends with some of them, and one day, there was cheering from the Milton classroom on Federal Street because Frankie drove his car to school. And there was laughter because Frankie’s car was nicer than mine. 

Play up - Or play where you at? Cape has three middle school girls’ lacrosse teams, and the eighth-graders don’t have an option of moving up like they do at Sussex Academy, Milford and most of the upstate private schools. Just different concepts and systems. Sussex Academy middle school was rocked by startup and upstart Fred Thomas – unbeaten through nine games – 17-1. It’s safe to say these smart girls know each other, and they know which way the deck is stacked. Seahawks goalie Charlotte Cline grew up in Milford as a neighbor and friend to Meredith Frederick, my granddaughter. Charlotte had a great game; she was credited with 18 saves (a personal record), including stoning Meredith twice; however, Mere did find the goal three times. Fred stoppers Claire Hassel (two) and Ava Mitchell (one) combined for three saves. Joanna Tsoukalas scored the goal for Sussex Academy. There was a cute foster puppy at the game with sixth-grader Sienna Grapski that answers to the name Mouth. Kimberly Harrington-Grapski told me Mouth’s brother is Mikey. They are named after characters from the movie “Goonies” and fostered with Grass Roots Rescue. Mouth is 3 months old, perhaps a pitty mix.   

Zackzilla - Zack Gelof (Cape, University of Virginia) developed a rib injury while on rehab assignment with the Athletics in Las Vegas from hand surgery, which has delayed his return to the major league club. There is no specific timeline on Zack's return. Zack cannot swing the bat until the rib injury heals completely.    

Speed limits - The National High School Federation suggests limits to practice times and number of competitions per week, and each sport if different. I was thinking of sporting a T-shirt that says “undertrained and overfed,” designed for athletic contrarians. Seriously, what is going on, Marvin Gaye? How many sports can an athlete play in one day? There is a difference between low mileage and high mileage. It seems some of our kids may be used up by the time they are 20 years old. I cover young athletes competing. I mostly don't see the childhood obesity crowd. And no one covers more running events than me. Again, the demographic is mostly fit people. I remember the late comedian Martin Mull talked about starting a track team at a mental institution. He said, “I’m pretty sure I can get a patient to run the mile, but how do I get him to stop?” Funny, not funny. Many people in sports take success, then drive it to excess, and there are lots of different outcomes, and half of them are bad. 

Snippets - The Henlopen Conference Track and Field Championships are at Lake Forest High School. They started May 8 and continue Friday, May 9. Go go demilesplit.com for live results if you’re a track fan or even an oscillating fan. You will find the site easy to navigate. A big meet with more than 18 events is always littered with upsets. Outfielder Noah Burroughs (Sussex Central, Salisbury University) was named Rookie of the Year in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference. Back in the day, a very good Cape baseball pitcher worked part time on a garbage truck. I remember quoting the kid, “I work part time on the garbage truck to make a little cash, and on my day off, I still talk trash.” Trash talking has evolved more in playfulness, and in some sports, it is held in high regard. Go on now, git!