Cheetahs run fast, cheaters run smart
Look out for the cheater – If it’s an April Fools Day race on a frigid Sunday morning in March devised by a race director who teachers physical education in elementary school and has an annual contest for who can stand on the head the longest, then I’m cheating if I'm in that race. Grand Mom Rose: “If you can't run like a cheetah then run like a cheater." But no one thought of that, all 40 runners played by the rules and stopped to make a basket, crawled under a roof two feet off the ground, jumped rope, used a hula hoop and approached the finish hurdling over culvert of brackish frozen brine. When I told several that I would cheat because the event was by definition “foolish,” they looked at me askance like they thought I had more integrity.
Hero’s Club – “A hero ain’t nothing but a sandwich.” Perhaps, but if you say Hero’s Club Lacrosse in Baltimore you're talking about the most power laden summer girls' league in the nation. After Cape’s 13-5 win over visiting Glenelg March 28, two players – arguably their best – No. 2 Julia Sheehan and No. 3 Alyssa Arnold wanted their picture taken with P.J. Kesmodel when they heard he founded the Hero’s Club. It was a nice, unexpected moment. Glenelg Country School is in the B Division of the MIAA League in Baltimore.
Tenor and tone – How many NCAA men’s and women’s and NIT basketball games have you watched over the last two weeks? How many Buick commercials did you endure? Charles Barkley is more omnipresent than Will Ferrell. But I must say I thought the officiating using three-person crews was all first class. There was no hesitation to make a call, but calls weren’t made just to make them. In overtime of the Louisville versus Michigan State game, more beating and banging was allowed; they allowed the players to decide the outcome of the game. Sometimes referees and umpires in a sport make crucial mistakes, while other times a crew can be excessively meddlesome. Knowing rules and enforcing them obsessively is not the job of officials. It’s very subtle and intuitive; the job requires good judgment and common sense.
Baseball and softball – There has been a lot of lacrosse and soccer written about this month on the Gazette sports pages because they are able to play games on two turf fields while hardball and softball each has played only once. Players and coaches are eager to get the season going to find out what is up but the weather has been a wet and bone-chilling distraction. Hopefully soon it will be so nice we’ll all be swatting no-see-ums.
One and done – How can the NCAA hand down harsh sanctions on the Syracuse basketball program when the entire structure of Division I basketball from “one and done” to lessening admissions requirements is shaky at best? According to the New York Times, about 21 percent of NBA players have college degrees. The average annual salary in the NBA is $5.85 million. An estimated 60 percent of NBA players are broke within five years of retiring, to which I say, “define broke” because if you are reading this column you most likely qualify if you ever dropped down from $5.85 million annually. You’re the guy asking the Wawa clerk “When is the two for $3 breakfast sandwich special coming back?"
Snippets – There was a track meet March 27 at the A.I. Invitational – the high school not the hospital. Cape’s Andi Brzoska, a junior, won the discus with a toss of 98-feet 11-inches, best in the state this young season. DaJonte Mackey was fourth in the 100-meter hurdles in 17.85, Keren Rams fifth in the high jump with a leap of 4-feet 4-inches and Grace Brokaw was sixth in the pole vault at 6 feet. Maren Ford who played hockey and softball at Cape then hockey at Princeton and made the U.S. National Team was Cape’s first girl to try the pole vault and won the indoor state title with a jump of 6 feet. She begged me not to put it in the paper, but she lost. Mackey also placed fifth in the triple jump at 31-feet 1-inch. The boys' team saw DeAndre Shepperd place sixth in the high jump at 5-feet 6-inches, Sam Young won the pole vault at 13-feet 6-inches and Brandon Nixon was third in the shot put at 43-feet 4-inches.
There are big girls' soccer games this week for Cape as they host Sussex Central Tuesday, March 31, and Sussex Tech Thursday, April 2. Game times are 7 p.m.
Go on now, git!
