Sands of time sifting through fingers of little girl friends

Sand of Time - Childhood friends Katie Frederick and Alia Marshall pass the time allowing sand to sift through their fingers during a lull at junior lifeguard competition on Rehoboth Beach back in their sweet little girl days. Katie is now the president of the University of  Delaware field hockey club team, while Alia was just named to the U.S. National Field Hockey Team. Both young women hang their hats on lifetime friendships; all the other stuff is just fun and games.  

Message in a bottle - “Just a castaway. An island lost at sea. Another lonely day. With no one here but me.” – The Police, 1979. Postings on social media don't change the game, they just make it easier to follow the players and keep score. Coaches who sell messages at practices by day then post photos of themselves in bars behind bottles and tumblers at night can't expect players to take them seriously at practice, because they don’t. I lived my entire life inside the high school network, and I can tell you that the age group of student/athletes knows what is up with teachers and coaches, and their own parents. Just because you are a grown person doesn’t mean, as Sting sang, ”I always feel like somebody’s watching me.” 

Quinlan Heacook - “Q” is a Sussex Tech and University of Delaware graduate about to enter UD’s master’s program in speech pathology and communication disorders. “Q,” as he is known, is the son of Kathy Heacook, Cape’s first great distance runner from the late ’70s and a longtime friend of mine. Kathy also ran the first Lewes marathon back in 1977. My granddaughter Lizzie, who enters her second year in the same program, gave me a heads-up on Quinlan – “I think you know his family”– and yes, he is the nephew of fallen Delmar police officer Keith Heacook. I still see Keith as a free-ranging Cape kid, always affable and friendly, liked by everyone. Q is part of the Heacook family dynamic, an example of how what happens to one of us affects us all. His academic accomplishments are to be celebrated.

Moody Blues - If the athlete who lives in your house is morose, moody or magenta and you get a sense there is just something off about them, best to offer them an open door and time to just shut it down for a while. I think of Ben Simmons of the Sixers or Donavan Brazier, the reigning world champion at 800 meters, who finished dead last at Olympic trials. “There are things champions overcome, and I couldn’t overcome them,” Brazier said. A lot of sidelined people now talk openly about mental health, but mostly they have no idea what they are talking about. We expect athletes to cope with adversity, to always show up on game day, and to survive the next tryout. Two of my granddaughters, Anna and Lizzie, declined to take their fifth year playing lacrosse at Temple. I said to them, “You guys are so selfish. Think about someone else. Think about me. Now what am I supposed to do?” 

Games blow up - I was watching the University of Virginia baseball team control Mississippi State 4-0 in the College World Series with one out into the eighth inning. The Virginia pitcher was throwing a no-hitter.  Then bam! Two-run homer. Change pitchers. Bam! Three-run homer. Bam! RBI single. A six spot. UVA loses 6-5 and now must beat Texas then Mississippi State twice. Sports will kick you in the head then rip your beating heart from your chest. And that is the price paid for having so much fun. 

Snippets - I emceed the state championship field hockey banquet Monday night and the girls’ lacrosse state championship banquet Thursday night. I feel like Wilford Brimley. There is going to come a time when I don’t get asked but show up anyway, thinking I lost the invitation. There is a state championship ring ceremony for the Cape wrestling team at Fish On from 5 to 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 29.  The cost is $10. I’ve been invited to speak because I made jokes about the non-sanctioned state championship banquet at Baywood for not being invited to the microphone. My late brother Tom told me, “I stopped speaking at the banquets when I realized no one knew what I was talking about and the old jokes didn’t work anymore. I can’t believe you’re still doing it.” I said, “It's not my fault if they can’t keep up.” Go on now, git!