The whammy is bad, but the double whammy is worse

The whammy - Two extended arms with fingers on both hands wiggling coming from a sports person is the equivalent of a hex, sending bad juju in someone’s direction Free-throw shooters get whammied relentlessly, and it’s all in good fun. There is also the double whammy, like missing a dunk and spraining an ankle on the same play. I caught a photo of Cape wrestling coach Shane Jensen at Sussex Tech sending a modified whammy – the dreaded Milton whammy – in the direction of the official. Now, I know that is not the case, but I’d like to see more coaches whipped up into a whammy frenzy.  

Girls’ basketball - Beacon, under head coach Pete Weisengoff, is 5-0. No team has scored double figures against them, and they average close to 40 points per game. Their 16-person roster is populated by mostly multiple-sport athletes. Hold that thought. Though its mostly non-recorded history of empty rosters, Beacon had always been great in basketball, posting several undefeated seasons. But many of those athletes who came from other sports decided not to play in high school, as they excelled in field hockey and lacrosse. Now, the Cape varsity girls’ team, under the direction of coaches Ron Dukes, John Gordon, Sam Purple and Carlin Quinn, are sitting 5-0, having just defeated unbeaten Stephen Decatur 50-31. The lacrosse/hockey girls joined the fun, and I watched the telecast on the Delmarva Sports Network last week from the comfort of my thrift store couch. The thing that struck me was crisp passing, quickness and athleticism on defense, and no one did stupid stuff. Lacrosse players on the court were: Mikaela Gordon, Mairead Rishko, Maya Yngve, Amara Fruchtman and Ally Diehl. Jordynn Bowe, a field hockey goalie, also sees primetime action. Haley Gamuciello, who’s quick as a cat in a car wash, another left-handed laxer, adds speed to the lineup. Note: Taking photos provides a more narrow focus than falling back into coach panoramic pundit potato land.

Wrestling room tough - I pose the question, why step headfirst into a meat grinder double-elimination tournament, aka the Beast of the East, knowing all analytics aside that the very best of Delaware grapplers, those who are contenders for state placement and championships, are likely to lose twice? I think it starts in the room, where pushing oneself to the brink becomes addictive in a satisfying way. Running is also an individual sport where a team score is kept. It’s about pushing through the pain barrier. Hanging near the front and waiting to unleash a kick is one approach, but taking it out with three laps to go in an eight-lap race is just straight up crazy painful, but some athletes get off on that stuff. 

Walk the Line - “I keep my eyes wide open all the time.” We all do as a family of athletes who play a sport. I’ve seen reasonable people lose their minds, and usually the issue is playing time. I have a rule to govern my own behavior which is, “There are lines you should never cross because if you do, you can never get back.” I could tell you stories all day long on this issue, and I’m sure all readers have a few of their own.    

Fred-bergers Syndrome - I encountered a sports savant student before arriving at Cape who had a head filled with agate, what most know as sports stats. I remember him telling me which teams were in the North American Soccer League (1967-84) and the names of their head coach and leading scorer. I remember this kid Bobby adding a sentence, “And our own Philadelphia Atoms,” who dissolved in 1976. This is before the internet. He got all his stats from the agate pages of newspapers. It was how Bobby ordered and made sense of an unpredictable world he had no control over. On Saturday night, I woke up and watched the Bears beat the Packers in overtime, and later trekked into a dark bedroom then went under the covers and began organizing all 32 teams in the NFL by conference and four-team division. The late sportswriter Dan Jenkins lived to 90 and once wrote, “When I was a younger man, I fell asleep each night thinking about women. Now, I think about killing people.” I think about sports teams and leagues, and also family kinship networks. 

Snippets - Jameson Tingle, Cape’s junior quarterback, has announced his commitment to the University of Delaware to play football. Bennett Brumbley, a senior at Sussex Tech, has announced his intention to wrestle at Division III Albright College in Reading, Pa. Albright competes in the Mid-Atlantic Conference. Cape wrestling won the Governor’s Cup as the highest-placing Delaware team in the Beast of the East tournament. Cape placers at the Beast in years past were Matt Graviet, third, and Thomas Ott, eighth. Grayson Davis finished the Beast in fifth place at 144 pounds. Go on now, git!