I stuck the dismount of the stationary bike at Gold’s Gym last Wednesday morning after the computer gave me all my readouts from 30 minutes of pedaling. I walked two bikes down to say hello to Duke field hockey coach Beth Bozman who was working out.
“Coach, I just got all my averages for a 30-minute bike ride with the key word being ‘average.’ ” Beth laughed, touched me on my shoulder, and said, “You are not average. You are in here, working at it, and that in itself makes you not average.”
Then we talked about the Olympics and Carrie Lingo and Marin Ford, who played for Beth when she was coach at Princeton, and Maxine Fluharty, who played for Beth as a member of the National Junior team that went to Holland.
We spoke of recruiting and then I figured I had annoyed Coach enough so I signed off, but she touched my shoulder again and said, “Remember, you are not average.”
The true coach is always coaching. Now I want to play field hockey for Duke. But those SAT scores of mine? Average.
SCOOP STOOPER - I have sat on many a sports scoop in my career because if someone on my beat says, “You can’t tell anyone…not yet.” I always honor that, otherwise I’m the distrustful, slimy guy.
Weeks ago I saw Josh Coveleski in Wawa and I told the Duke lacrosse player “I know you are doing your extra year at Delaware as a graduate student so why don’t you let me just break this story, because down here people know you and everyone in your family, going back to your grandparents.”
Last Wednesday night Josh called me on my cell phone as I returned for the Blue-Gold scrimmage at Dover High, where his cousin Max and Dominique Thomas and my buddy Nick Kmetz are on the team. Josh told me that “Inside Lacrosse” magazine had broken the story online about where all the extra-year Duke guys were playing and that he was called by a News Journal reporter (who happens to be my buddy Kevin Tresolini) who works the University of Delaware beat, so better he scoop the story than me. Bottom line is, Josh doesn’t have to call me at all but if you know him you know that he is class all the way.
BLUE-GOLD SCRIMMAGE - There were more people in the Milford Chicken Man than at Dover High last Wednesday night to watch the Gold team scrimmage - offense versus defense - which raises the question, “Why leave UD in the first place if everyone is eating dinner at Sam’s Club?”
Max Coveleski, coming on in relief of Nick Kmetz, led a drive down the field, hitting Ryan Gerlitz of Middletown and teammate Dominique Thomas - who had three catches in the abbreviated scrimmage to the one-yard line.
A pre-scripted fade pass to Gerlitz was picked off by Ben Hopkins of Middletown and returned 105 yards for a touchdown.
“I was told, no matter what, to throw the ball,” Coveleski said, smiling. The scrimmage lacked intensity and cohesion (at least five center snaps over the quarterback’s head), but then nature provided its own electricity, sending players back to Delaware.
COACH MARSHALL - Thanks to Jim Brittingham for the picture that accompanies this column, which shows the backfield of the 1951 undefeated Lewes football team. Tom Marshall, who passed away last Saturday at age 73 was head coach at C.W. Post from 1983-97 and amassed a record of 82-60-2 and wrote two books on football. Above all, he was a Lewes boy and a first-class person. He will forever be Coach Marshall.
SNIPPETS - Terri Klopp made a hole in one on the 14th hole on the Marsh Island Golf Club May 27. Amanda Hastings, star player for Sussex Central and four-year starter at Drexel was at the Rehoboth Little League Park last Tuesday night in support of Griffin Kammerer, who is her cousin. Amanda closed out her Drexel career (she was roommates with Cape’s Lisa Williams) with a career batting average of over .300 and is on the all-time top 10 list for doubles and RBIs.
Amanda will begin a masters/doctorate program in clinical psychology this fall at Argosy in Washington, D.C.
“I will work some camps this summer with John Wells, the central Coach,” she said. “I really like coaching kids.”
Local physical therapist John Knarr is in Austria with heavyweight champion of the world Wladimir Klitschko training him for his upcoming fight Saturday, July 12.
It will air live on HBO at 5 p.m. Eastern and will be in Hamburg, Germany.
John is not a fight trainer - why not throw the right one in awhile - but rather the trainer who keeps Wladimir healthy and free from injury.
Maxine Fluharty made the High Performance Regional team from Maryland at the hockey festival currently going on in Virginia Beach and will get an opportunity to play against USA team members including the New England team on which Carrie Lingo is playing. The Blue-Gold All-Star game is 7 p.m Saturday, June 21, at University of Delaware.
-
Sports Editor Emeritus
Email Fredman at fredman@capegazette.com
