Riley and Rylie meet at Seattle cannabis convention

The Enforcer - Riley Cote played eight years in the NHL, including four as a left winger for the Philadelphia Flyers (2007-10), mainly as an enforcer. His job was to go out and fight. He threw punches that landed and got beat up himself. He helped the Philadelphia Phantoms win the Calder Cup in the 2004-05 season, leading the league with 280 penalty minutes. I talked to the 36-year-old tattooed tough guy Monday morning, standing in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue in Lewes. Who’s going to tell us to move? That’s right, we bad. Riley is a ripped stud who could walk into a biker bar and walk out with everyone’s spiked helmet. He can use cannabis and conniption in the same sentence with a straight face. Riley met 12-year-old Rylie Maedler in Seattle at a cannabis convention. Rylie Maedler led a movement in Delaware to get cannabis legalized for medicinal use. Riley Cote used it after games because, “my body was so beaten up,” he said. “Painkillers and other prescription drugs or alcohol are just bad roads to go down. I’ve been an advocate for hemp for a long time.” According to his Wikipedia page, Cote used cannabis as a natural pain reliever and alternative to addictive pharmaceutical drugs. After retiring, Cote co-founded Athletes for Care, a group that advocates for athletes on various matters of health and safety, including the use of cannabis as medicine. Riley Cote is married with two children. He has relatives in Lewes on his wife Ashley’s side, but he wouldn’t give them up. He owns a hemp farm in Pennsylvania.

Sports and society - Sounds like a class college athletes take to stay eligible. Man, it is complicated out here in columnist land. I know when I stand in front of a donut display I can hear the slogan “Just Do It!” inside my head. I’m beyond any advertiser’s demographic and so who endorses what shoe means little in my orthopaedic easywalker world. In the 38 years I’ve been covering high school sports, I’ve heard some good but mostly bad renditions of the national anthem. I watched people who didn’t know any better show no respect for the moment. It’s better now than it used to be. I was always afraid some Vietnam vet would go “Apocalypse Now” and take out an entire row of trifling teenagers who just didn’t get what the flag represented. In the past I’ve pleaded with some school officials, “If you can’t enforce decency and decorum, then don’t play the song.” I read a business story on Nike which said, “The worldwide $38 billion company is most concerned with customers for the next 30 years, not the last 30.” Where are my maypops?

Down to Delmar - I was an assistant Cape football coach on the sidelines standing in the pouring rain in the fall of 1975. Bill Collick was standing next to me. Bill kept saying, “I don’t like this. I can see the writing on the wall.” We kicked off in the second half and some dude named Johnson – they have a lot of them – ran it back through puddles of mud for the only touchdown of the game. Don’t let anyone sell the “little old Division II Delmar” theme; they are fast and tough and well coached. Cape under new coach J.D. Maull will have their hands full down there Friday night. But unlike 1975, now they have a Wawa.

Snippets - I’ve become a Rafael Nadal fan. As an athlete, he is a beast. Serena Williams is too big to hang with all those skinny players; they need to move her from side to side, but the thing is, she can stroke it and make shots. And don’t make any comparison between tennis and pickleball. The WNBA Finals begin Friday at 9 p.m. on ESPN News, as the Seattle Storm led by Breanna Stewart host the Washington Mystics led by Elena Delle Donne. Game Two is Sunday at 3:30 p.m. on ABC. Cape’s cross country teams are at the Lake Forest Invitational at Killens Pond State Park on Saturday. Cape has 51 boys out for the team, while the girls have 15 on the roster. But the girls can field a top 7 that is pretty competitive. Delaware State football plays the Red Flash at St. Francis University of Loretto. St. Francis is a trap game; the Hornets can get beaten there. St. Francis cost about $45,000 a year for tuition, room and board. Go on now, git!