Swimming in the stream of consciousness, showing up and showing out. 

Streaming the scene - Late-afternoon middle school sports is its own scene outside the lines. It's generational and involves reconfiguration if you're diagramming a kinship matrix. That experience cannot be captured on livestream or YouTube; you have to be there. If there were a noise ordinance, most buildings would be in violation. I ain’t gonna lie; cheerleaders are too amped for gramps, but they bring the energy and enthusiasm, which is their job. “Ain’t no competition like the real competition” – after 50 years of games, I still don’t know what that means. Fred Thomas at Beacon was an upside-down angel food cake, with the Freds rolling over the winless Beacon boys 39-9, followed by  the unbeaten Beacon girls housing the Fred girls 51-16. It’s hard to project and predict future successes in a particular sport because of the development curve, but on a particular afternoon, the arena is as close to a revival meeting as it gets short of a Pentecostal church service.  

Confidence component - A confident athlete comes closest to optimum performance, because without swagger there is no chance of summoning adrenaline, which is “a hormone and neurotransmitter released by the adrenal glands that triggers fight-or-flight response.” Real athletes can remember flying around on game day, then being grounded the next day in practice. In my family, it’s called the Fred Walk, and when I see it, there it is; I know my athlete is game ready. You age out of all that good natural stuff, which is why they sell epinephrine pens. 

FCA versus FCC - There are prayer circle gatherings of players after NFL games historically inspired by FCA, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. The network broadcasters avoid all this because of public airways and Federal Communications Commission regulations, not wanting to get in the middle of the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment. I also notice post-game chats when an interviewer asks a player about their stellar performance, and the player responds, “First of all, I’d like to give all glory to God.” A media person has never responded, “Praise Jesus! Amen, my brother!” That’s because the network person cannot endorse the free expression of another on federal airways. Confused?   

Vic The Demon - Madge Layfield, a Georgetown hometown girl and stalwart Sussex Central pitcher, has transferred to Northwestern State in Louisiana after pitching her freshman year at Central Arkansas. NWS is located in Natchitoches, and the school mascot is Vic the Demon, with Vic being short for “Victory.” Teams are D1 in all sports. At Central Arkansas, Madge tallied a 6-4 record in 50.1 innings of work with two complete games and 20 strikeouts for the Bears. She had back-to-back complete-game victories against Illinois State (March 8) and Southeast Missouri (March 11), allowing just two runs across 12.0 innings of work, with only one of them earned. She also saw action during the season against Power 4 opponents Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Oklahoma State.

Embellishments - Forty years ago, Dr. Wesner Stack, a University of Delaware runner, calmly and matter-of-factly said to me, “When a runner tells you how many miles they train, divide it by two; when they tell you about their personal-best times, add 20%, or subtract half a foot if it’s a field event.” Not often, but sometimes, an aged-out athlete standing in front of me will start tripping off some glory story from back in the day, and depending on how kind i’m feeling or the length of the story or how many times I've heard it before, I’ll say, ”Do you realize who you are talking to? Yarns from back yonder should have a shred of believability.” But it’s also what makes sports as harmless as fairy tales in a children's book, unless the fairy is 65 years old. 

Snippets - Sal Mineo is an outfielder on the University of Delaware baseball team. He is from Slippery Rock, Pa. He is not related to the famous actor who appeared in “Rebel Without a Cause” starring James Dean. I know this because I posed the question and AI set me straight. Sal the actor died in 1976, so only bots and boomers remember his name and fame. Young parents talk about running hither, thither and yon in the spring delivering kids to sporting events. I’m an upper-age-range grandparent, and I have five Freds playing spring lacrosse: Mikey, Lina, Will, Meredith and James. My favorite thing is talking to people along the fence. It is my social life. Looks like I picked the wrong millennium to quit drinking. Go on now, git!