Who is crazier, hockey fathers or wrestling mothers?

At a home wrestling match versus Smyrna Friday, Feb. 6, I heard a man yell “hamster head,” and I was going to stand up and say, “Who you calling hamster head?” Then I realized I most certainly misheard because what human being has ever screamed “hamster head” in the middle of a crowded gym? But what I didn’t mishear was a mother screaming at her son “get your knee up his butt!”

I had to write it down and I thought, “Who is crazier, hockey fathers or wrestling mothers?”
Later in the match Andrew Westgate was called for an illegal flip, which got me to wondering if there are flips which are legal. Later another mom was screaming, “Keep the head! Keep the head!” “Head Hunt” is another cheer I like, not to be confused with Helen Hunt.

DOUBLE T - If the officials are going to hit a coach with a Double T and a two-game suspension they should at least give a coupon for biggie fries and large Coke to go with it. I know officials and coaches and all the players and I know that Cape coach Dwight Tingle seldom looses his cool and I know the officials who won’t back down from what they perceive as the correct call and won’t hesitate to control a coach’s behavior with a technical foul which is two shots and the ball. Let’s not get two technicals or the coach is gone for that game and the next one. Do fans actually think referees cheat? Yes, some fans are diehard conspiracy theorists. Do officials sometimes make calls that are questionable? Yes, all calls are questioned by half the people in the gym. Coaches Mike Starkey of Smyrna and Damon Ayers of Woodbridge each had several crucial calls go against them late in their games against Cape. Neither coach ever showed any sign of disagreeing with the official or waving the official off suggesting he was an idiot. They just kept coaching. I once got thrown out of the gym in the first quarter coaching a JV game at a private school. I know I’m not cool!

SURVIVOR - Swimming is just the best sport, all bong hit jokes aside. Swimming and running, together, and throw in biking and you have a triathlete - fit and ripped and healthy - knowing all about dedication and diet things that serve you well in life.

“A life of training is better than a life with training wheels,” Grandmom Rose used to say. I am so impressed with the job coaches Bill Geppert and Pete Olson have done with the Cape swim teams as the girls won the conference for the fourth year in a row while the boys came in second. But swimming is not a spectator sport because who in their right mind besides a parent is going to sit in a natatorium for five hours with fogged camera lenses and glasses watching races contested by anonymous athletes. It would help if they served pizza.

FIRE MARSHAL - The difference between God and the fire marshal is that God knows he’s not a fire marshal. Saturday night at the Woodbridge game, I’m parked on the bus circle because all the handicapped spots had been taken by nonhandicapped people and don’t make me bring you out because I saw 13 people get out of an SUV and not a one of them was so much as limping, waddling or carrying oxygen.

I text messaged Cape’s athletic director, Bob Cilento: “Please don’t tow me!” and then spoke to a state cop who assured me they wouldn’t tow unless told to do so by the principal. But then Cilento said the fear-provoking words, “fire marshal.” By the way I was wrong and the fire marshal is always right and I ended up missing most of the first quarter of a game I was professionally covering. The thought of Coastal Towing Charlie hooking up my Tundra was just more than I wanted to deal with. Grover P. Ingle is the state fire marshal, but I’m guessing there are lots of deputies in his posse.

SNIPPETS - I have seen NFL players up close for the last 11 years and some of them just look unnatural. I have no problem concluding that I know unnatural when I see it. The latest marquee player implicated as a steroid user is baseball player Alex Rodriquez. He has always looked the part but is a bit of a moping personality type but then again so are Barry and Roger. The danger down low at the high school level is that the deleterious side effects of steroids are not believed by lots of young athletes who consider a 400-pound bench and college scholarship worth an elevated heart rate and de-elevated sex drive.