A sports day for half of the Patriots

Gronk and Spicey - Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski opened the door to a Sean Spicer press briefing in the White House April 19, acting like he had walked into the wrong room. It was a funny face-to-face interlude. Spicey lined up opposite Gronk, but Sean is used to being in over his head. Half of the Patriots team visited the White House south lawn while the other half, including Tom Brady, elected to stay home. That same day, Aaron Hernandez committed suicide. It reflected back to a New England Super Bowl team in 2012 that had Gronkowski and Hernandez on opposite ends. Sports and society would be a popular class to offer in high school - trying to keep it real, as in relevant.   

Marathon mania - The Boston Marathon is not the race to run fast if you are a good runner but not elite. A total of 26,400 make it tough to put one foot down in front of the other. With all the subcategories, it is more a happening than a race. There are categories for wheelchairs, hand cycles, visually impaired and mobility impaired. I’d need a category for the common sense impaired. I’d pay five times the entry fee for race support and certification a week after everyone went home. I’d rather run the Rehoboth Marathon, a beautiful flat course that gives me a chance at a fast time. It reminds me of when the trout used to run heavy in the Delaware Bay. The fishing fleet would find them, usually on the Jersey side at Brandywine Light, and hundreds of boats would fish the same spot amidst the vastness of all that open water. Not for me; to paraphrase George Thorogood: “I fish alone because I prefer to be by myself.”

A cultural blending - Cape boys’ lacrosse played the Shipley School on the Philadelphia Main Line April 18. If you didn’t have GPS then there was no chance of ever finding Farm Field 1 ... or was that Farm Field 3? Snaking through two-lane roads with undulating hills and sharp turns showcases the good life America had to offer in the pursuit of privilege - it’s what we do. The Cape district is no slouch when it comes to real estate, and there are few Buicks in the student parking lot of the high school. It’s just different levels of elite living, but the advantage goes to Cape because we have an ocean and a big old bay that many think is the ocean. 

Snippets - The last weekend in April is always the Penn Relays at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. This year, the NFL draft is the same weekend, and it is somehow staged at the art museum. A great urban expedition would be to park at the sports complex in South Philly, then take the Broad Street subway to City Hall, then transfer to the Market Street subway west and get off around 33rd Street. Then you can walk between both venues.

Cape girls’ lacrosse will play at Queen Anne’s County Saturday, April 22, while the boys play at Archmere. Huge challenges for both teams. The Mariner boys’ lacrosse team is 6-0, while sister school Beacon is 3-0. The two programs are pretty close in talent, and many of the athletes play together on the U15 Atlantic team, but Beacon and Mariner do not play each other this season. Cape Athletic Director Bob Cilento can make that game happen, but somewhere at the coach level, they just don’t want to play each other. I watched Russell Westbrook score 51 points and get the first NBA triple-double by a guy scoring over 50, but the Thunder still lost to the Rockets 115-111. There is no more athletic person on the planet than Westbrook.

The Stanley Cup remains the hardest-earned trophy in all of sports. Perhaps the Washington Capitals can get there this year?

The Coastal Delaware Running Festival is this Saturday and Sunday. There will be a 5K run Saturday, while Sunday is packed full with a 9K, half marathon and full marathon. What’s at your hydration station? Go to codelrun.com for maps and start times. The 5K starts and finishes at Hyatt Place in Dewey. Tower Road Bayside is the common start for all three races Sunday morning. The marathon starts at 7 a.m., the half marathon starts at 7:30 and the 9K starts at 8 a.m. All races cross Silver Lake bridge and all finish at Hyatt Place. The Coastal Delaware Running Festival is a masterpiece of organization and civic cooperation and participation. The first Lewes Marathon in 1977 was mapped out on the back of a paper plate by John Curtin, former manager of the Lewes Board of Public Works. Are the good old days really over for good? Go on now, git!