State championship of golf runs through Slaughter Neck and Coolspring
Every dog has his day. My dog’s day is spent sleeping over the air-conditioning register under the kitchen table. Another school year of sports is gone. To be honest, the athletes and families I admire the most are the ones who really do comprehend the team concept, those athletes who are not stars and fight for playing time, sometimes don’t play and have parents who attend every game and cheer for all the kids. Those people trip me out; I want to scan them to learn how they can be so gracious and magnanimous. I played it off this spring in lacrosse when my granddaughter Anna began to snap for multiple-goal games. Sure, anyone who has a family person doing well who doesn’t enjoy it beyond belief isn’t being honest. But if my family person gets iced by a coach - going back to my own kids - I totally don’t like it to the point that I can barely see straight. And what makes it worse is I’m a sports reporter. Objectivity is one thing, and family is another. Thanks to all those athletes and family members who have it all in perspective. You teach the rest of us a great deal.
Coach Mark, the hall of famer - The next time you run your smart phone through the washer, head to Atlantic Cellular and ask for the Hall of Fame guy. Mark D’Ambrogi, former Cape head coach who won four state championships for the Vikings, will be inducted into the Delaware Lacrosse Hall of Fame by the Delaware Lacrosse Foundation at 6:30,Thursday, June 9, at Clayton Hall on the University of Delaware campus. If you’ve ever seen Mark coach the U9 team at Atlantic Lacrosse, he’s the same guy. By the way, his mother, Mary Corrigan D'Ambrogi, is in the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the United States Lacrosse Hall of Fame. His cousin Kevin is the head coach at Notre Dame, and his uncle Gene is former commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference. But can Mark pull your address book out of a wet phone? That’s all we consumers really care about.
Sinking sun - A mistake made by many local locals is to make fun of tourists without ever going to the beach themselves. I go to the beach by myself and make fun of tourists under my hat as I’m usually alone and have no one to bounce my witticisms off. I took a picture from a bench on Lewes Beach of the sun setting into scattered clouds, and to me it looked like a tennis ball, and when I think tennis ball I think retriever--I know you think Maria Sharapova - because 80 percent of the balls bought in this country are for doggies who are banned from most beaches because some of them bite and fight and do nasty doggie-pile things.
Aaron Burton - The senior golfer from Concord was the 2011 medalist and overall Delaware state champion, shooting a two-day total of 72-78, total 150, at the Cripple Creek Country Club in Bethany Beach. Aaron is the son of former Cape athletes Anthony Burton and Ella Floyd Burton. He was also the point guard on the Concord basketball team that eliminated Cape from the boys' basketball tournament in March. And now a piece of the golf championships runs through Slaughter Neck and Coolspring. That is just way cool.
Snippets - Cape is interviewing for the position of head basketball coach, and I don’t know much other than the pool is shallow. Back in the day - here he goes - a plum job like Cape Henlopen would be sought after by 50 applicants, but in today’s world the number is closer to five. The altruistic commitment to others as a life vocation is just not there. I remember my first step into Mr. Donut - don’t we all - back in summer 1975. A brown-eyed, handsome man was standing at the counter in a gold Cape track jacket that read State Champs. I looked at him and said, “That’s awesome,” and I was nobody, just some schlep at a doughnut counter, but I made up my mind that I wanted to be a recognized impact player in the local athletic community. And now here I am, complete with a locally earned nickname. I may still be a schlep at a doughnut counter, but I get a lot of “Yo, what’s up, Fredman?" and that type of local celebrity just can’t be bought. In the words of Burl Ives, “When you walk the streets you'll have no cares/ If you walk the lines and not the squares/ As you go through life make this your goal: Watch the donut, not the hole.” Go on now, git!
