No whistles or air horns - bagpipes and bass drums are allowed
Bye bye, Brad Brooks - At Delaware track's Meet of Champions, 10 qualified runners line up behind a curved line - the old waterfall start trick - for the command “Runners, set” followed by the gun. Brad Brooks of Charter, a senior, fell out of line after "Runners, set." The starter flashed a red card, and Brooks was off to a bigger and better life where second chances are almost always available. Sam Parsons of Tatnall then went after his own state record in the event with the public address announcer cheering him on, bellowing 400-meter splits and asking the crowd to get behind him as Parsons just needed to run a 62 on the final lap to break the state record. Parsons came up a tick-tock late and Brooks a tick-tock early. The emphasis was incongruous; the event was a non-scoring carnival. Aiding a single runner with splits is fun for everyone, but if that's the tenor of the track meet, then don't send stumbling runners off the track before a single shot is fired.
Sound-producing devices - I hear words read before athletic events but I don't listen. I'm pretty sure "no sound-producing devices" is part of the message. On May 22 at Wesley, the St. Andrew's lacrosse girls were all over Archmere in the semifinal game, and after each goal there were bagpipes and bass drums set to the tune “When the Saints Go Marching In.” And there was “big dog barking.” As far as I know, Cape is the only school district ever to establish a “no barking” rule, going all the way back to the baseline bums and dog pound that showed up at 1982 basketball games. I asked Debbie Windett, the chairperson of the girls' lacrosse tournament, “What is the deal?” “Outdoors, anything except whistles and air horns is allowed,” Debbie said. This column goes to print before the state championship game is played May 24, and I am leery of life in the bleachers, everyone on the same side, bagpipes and cowbells. I just don't see it working.
Stop talking to athletes - The game has got to stop. When is the last time a professional athlete said anything interesting? Bunches of microphones are stuck in their faces before and after games or when they are reporting to training camp. And virtually none of them are the slightest bit engaging until the media has left the room; then many revert to the towel-snapping period of adolescence where they were fixated a decade earlier. A strange irony is, we now live in a world of Twitter and 144 characters; there is no in-depth conversation with anyone, but if you scan satellite radio, there are 100 stations that feature people who talk on endlessly about what other people do. I can only conclude that when there's nothing else to do, people will listen - as long as they don't have to talk back or look at the person.
Snippets - Dr John Spieker, a former world-class hurdler at Rutgers University in the mid-1970s and top-tier orthopedic surgeon, contacted me about organizing a series of roundtable discussions I would moderate. According to Spieker, the discussions would cover “the differences in training pre-teens, high school and college-age kids, the serious triathlete and the fat middle-aged guy who is destined for a heart attack if he doesn't change his lifestyle. The good and bad of strength training can be explored as well as problems with new fads.” I did not include what Dr. John considers new fads, as I don't want to be attacked by 100 sweaty women from a Zumba class or some blockheaded mesomorph in a wife beater rolling a knobby traction truck tire down a cinder service road.
Memorial Day is not the start of the drinking season - more about small towns and parades and showing respect for Americans who gave it up for the team. Don't forget to thank somebody and their families. Read about Bill Carpenter, the 1959 Army All-American nicknamed “Lonesome End” who later won the Silver Star in Vietnam. Go on now, git!
