Fifteen-yard stare: fitting two heads in the frame of a 300-mm lens

Fifteen yards away - The lens and camera rig I had required me to stand 15 yards away to get Lee Sibley and Jon Gordon in the frame. Sibley, the coach, and Gordon, the point guard, are a legendary basketball tandem. In the 1995 state finals, unbeaten Saint Mark’s defeated favored William Penn 52-51 on a half-court shot at the buzzer by Alex Karlsen. Sibley was legendary for taking the air out of the ball. Sibley was recently injured in a fall and now lives in what he called a senior living place. The coach joked: “Let it be said he died standing in line waiting for lunch." Gordon picked up Sibley to bring him to the Cape at Archmere lacrosse game. Jon's daughter Mikaela is a sophomore player for Cape. Sibley coached Saint Mark’s to a record of 244-133 over 16 years. He also coached at Brandywine for two seasons and Wilmington Friends for eight. His overall record as a basketball head coach is 364-249. He is in the Delaware Basketball Hall of Fame. Sibs is a brilliantly funny person. 

Two places - Every person watching a game in person has at least one other game they are simultaneously tracking remotely. Blue skies and sunny days are the worst because you can’t see the screen. Janice, the mom, told me she was watching Claire Lopez play lacrosse (five goals and two assists) while tracking Anna’s save rate playing goalie for William & Mary versus Campbell College. Anna had nine saves in a 10-8 loss. I was photographing eight quarters of Cape lacrosse while squinting at the glare on my phone following the Mercer at Air Force lacrosse game. Mikey Fred scored twice with an assist, but Air Force won 17-9. Caelan Driggs (Sallies, Air Force) set the all-time scoring record for the Falcons. He scored twice with two assists in the game. Full disclosure: I handed off tracking duties to Susan because if I was choosing phone over photos, I should have just stayed home. 

Major malfunction - How many people who spent four to six years in college resulting in a degree representing a major (area of expertise) actually work at a job related to that major? I was an anthropology major – the study of man – and never took a writing class or studied photography. I’m better than most at making jokes under threat of violence – thank Catholic schools for that. How about the sports management degree holders? It is a talent coordinating all those moving parts, assembling and disseminating data while keeping people happy and on time. Think of all the college teams airborne every day and coordinating buses, hotels and airplanes. Most college teams fly by commercial airlines, not charter flights. Can you imagine sharing coach seating with 75 football players with their equipment in the cargo hold? There are more jobs for sports managers than those with anthropology degrees, but I don’t know how you land either one of them. 

Translators - I laugh when non-English-speaking baseball players cover their mouths with the glove during a mound visit. The Phillies’ Cristopher Sanchez does it all the time. Who is reading their lips, the other team's translator? I once used a bilingual Cape student to serve as a translator as I interviewed a new student from Venezuela. “Ask him how he likes it here at Cape?” The kid answered for like 90 seconds using his hands as animation. Translator: “He said he likes it.” “Dude, he said a lot more than that.” I have 12 college credits in Spanish and knew they were playing me. I'm sure I heard “cabeza grande” and I asked, “Why do I gotta have a big head?” Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara  is serving a four-year prison sentence for stealing $17 million from Ohtani to pay gambling debts. Gambling is a major problem in Japan, but who knew?  

Snippets - Alan Firlein, 87, of Rock Hall, Md., ran the Oy Vey 5K Sunday in 49:48. He was second in his age group to 80-year-old Don Zalenski of Magnolia, whose time was 40:51. I don’t know, but Firlein has given up seven years. Bernie Gallagher, 85, was third in 59:53. April Anderson, 81, was women's 80-and-over champion in 49:24. Martin Rodriguez won the Oy Vey 5K in 18:34. I asked AI to translate Oy Vey into Spanish and the answer was “Ay, caramba!” Go on now, git!