This ain't no party! This ain't no disco! This ain't no fooling around!

Life lessons - “We believe by making them better people they become better players.” “She is a tremendous teammate on and off the field.” “The lessons learned on the gridiron will serve them well in later life.” “Sports don't develop character; they reveal character.” I'm sure there is a cliché for every kid and every sport. Mostly we think of scholastic sports as helping kids who actually need help, but in reality most of them don't. They are just playing for the glory of (fill in the blank) because sports are fun and to be on a team is so cool.  So maybe the character development part is overblown? “You can't have your cake and eat it, too,” to which I respond, “Why not? I bought it.” An ongoing conflict in the sports world occurs when the you-can't-be-two-places-at-once scenario develops. That scenario always pushes into the beginning of March when athletes who play indoor field hockey go to the intergalactic futures tournament just as spring practices are beginning. Most successful programs don't hang state championship banners with the “whenever you can get here; just let us know” approach to practice and scrimmages. Psychologists call it a forced-choice conflict, and conflict produces anxiety until a decision is made to resolve it, but players don't get to change the rules or alter the consequences of their choices. Like Grandmom Rose said to me years ago when I wanted to skip football practice to play in a basketball all-star showcase, “How can you be two places at once when you're nowhere at all?” Why was that woman always messing with my head?

Stop Making Sense - On the Talking Heads' 1983 album, my favorite song is “Life During Wartime” with the lyric “This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around.” The Cape girls' basketball team under the direction of Poochie [Hazzard] and Will [Edwards] always trips me out. Somehow those coaches get that team into street-fight mode and they go out and scrap, sometimes looking bad and occasionally losing bad with 40 turnovers, but you can never pencil them in in the loss column.  On Jan. 17, the lead Junkyard Dog Jacki Coveleski came up with two fourth-quarter steals during an 18-8 run as Cape beat Smyrna 54-44 for the first win over the Eagles in three years. Obviously Aaliyah Davis and Kadijah Doughty have to play well for Cape to beat a good team, but the rest of the pack has to perform, like Jasmine Johnson and Shantel Hazzard, who can handle the rock and are getting better each game, and Emily Baptiste and Claudia Ratner contributing quality minutes. Jacki Coveleski has appeared in eight final fours in a row over her three sports. I was figuring that streak to be stopped this basketball season, but after what I saw at Smyrna, like the rest of my life, I'm not sure about anything.

Basketball players or bricklayers? - “Struggles to Score” may look funny on a T-shirt but I wouldn't want to see it after my name on a basketball scouting report. The Cape boys' basketball team had won seven in a row, all but one low-scoring nail-biters, and now shooting touch is totally in the tank as Cape has lost consecutive road games at Dover 62-47 and William Tennent at Concord 52-44. Some players will pick up three credits in masonry at the end of the season. Most people can't break a 50 if you ask them for change - but an entire basketball team? This isn't a horse tournament at Arabian Stables, this is high school basketball in 2012. Reminder:  Cape lost the opening game of the season at Smyrna 55-48. The other loss was 64-31 at Sanford. I had a coach who used implosion therapy to correct bad shooting. We all practiced missing layups and four-foot jumpers and discovered it's easier and requires less creativity to just make the shot. You ever see a person trip on nothing? They get up and look back at the floor. "That floor is messed up because it sure ain't my fault.” The same with shooting - just put the ball in the basket, because that's what you’re supposed to do!

Snippets - A tribute and get-together to celebrate to celebrate life of Warren “Coach B” Beideman happens at 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Lewes Senior Center in Nassau. Maybe a bingo game will break out? I'm picking Giants and Patriots to win on Sunday. Go on now, git!