Princeton is a great school, but Philly trolleys are way cool

Rock ’em Sock ’em - I’ve been on the sock puppet southside of sports a few times playing on or coaching a good team that got housed like Precision Movers with a leaky hydraulic jack. “Get off me, homie!” It’s best not to linger in the moment, just move on to the next contest. I watched Temple women’s lacrosse get waxed like a beached catamaran by visiting Princeton Feb. 17 17-4. The Tigers started three freshmen, and they boast the top recruit in the country, Kayla Sears, the National High School Player of the Year in 2017, who scored four goals and two assists in her first varsity game. If Princeton lacrosse, which has an awesome program with three national titles, comes recruiting, you nestle around the breakfast nook and negotiate. “OK, it costs $70,000 for tuition and you give no athletic scholarships, so start working backward with grant monies that I don’t have to pay back.” Names of alumni are dropped: Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Stewart, F. Scott Fitzgerald (a dropout), Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Bradley, Steven Forbes, Queen Noor of Jordan, Ralph Nader, former Ebay executive Meg Whitman, David Duchovny of “The X-Files,” and Michelle Obama. Yep, you get recruited and you are going, but what they don’t have is the Girard Avenue electrified trolley running behind the south goal that produces a soothing hum. Now that is quintessential Philly. Urban hipsters who are taking over cities also realize that trolleys are all the way cool.

Pleasantville - Nice name for a New Jersey basketball team that came to Cape for the Slam Dunk tournament in 1995 and hung a 50-point loss on the Vikings. Everyone remembers some bearded behemoth dunking on the entire Little Big House; unfortunately, Dale Dunning was closest to him. Dale, a good-natured personality, got kidded in the hallways, which is weird because getting dunked on is not the same as getting run over by LeGarrette Blount.

The Sixties - Athletes I coached when I first got to Cape in the summer of 1975 are just turning 60. Many of them are grandfathers and many are not. I saw Tyrone Gibbs and Gilbert Maull sitting together before the Feb. 16 basketball game. Both men played football and ran track, while Tyrone won a pair of state titles in wrestling. “I was leading 12-0 in the state final my sophomore year and got caught and pinned with 15 seconds to go (Dale Gray, Sussex Central),” Tyrone said. Next year will mark the 50th year of Cape sports. If Petey Hazzard were still here, he’d want a round table sports discussion: “What decade of Cape produced the best athletes and teams?” I’ll go with the first of five decades, especially on the boys’ side. The girls, maybe the fifth?    

Snippets - Diaz Nardo singled home two runs in the top of the fifth to lead University of Delaware baseball to a 6-2 win over Charleston Southern Feb. 17. In the series clincher Feb. 18, Nardo hit a second-inning solo home run in a 1-0 UD victory. Billy Sullivan, a freshman pitcher from Saint Mark’s, went five innings to earn the victory. Redshirt junior Clay Conaway pitched scoreless baseball in the sixth and seventh. The Hens are 2-1 on the season. Senior Kat Judge had four goals and eight draw controls in Winthrop lacrosse’s 17-9 win over East Carolina. Kat followed with two goals and six draw controls in a 12-10 loss to Cincinnati. The individual state championship wrestling meet will return to Cape this Friday and Saturday. Cape girls’ basketball will close out the season hosting Laurel Tuesday night, Feb. 19. Game time is 6:15 p.m. With a win, the Vikings will finish the season at 10-10. I shot baskets with a youth ball Feb. 16 with grandson Baby James – he is 5 years old – and he thought I was joking when I shot four consecutive airballs from 5 feet away. I forgot to make the cross in both palms like I did after the priest blessed the team prior to taking the court at Bishop Egan High School in 1964. I have lost my touch, and my mojo just ain’t working no more. How about snowboarding seniors dropping in on the halfpipe? How hilarious would that be to watch? Go on now, git!