Community service without a court sentence

There is not a warm-blooded mammal on the planet at any age that is not under my consideration to conform to my personal rigorous standards for Athlete of the Week. I am the community sports dog - it’s what I do. Check out the last time a baby, horse, dog, drummer, trot liner, inline skater, chunker of pumpkins, along with the usual suspects from traditional sports, appeared anywhere else in mainstream media.

“Oh Fredman, are you doing baby bios now?”

No I am just doing what I want - hooking up like a hydrogen hybrid catching the current and pumping fresh oxygen back into the community. Responsible and responsive journalism, community service without a court sentence is what I do!

CONNECT THE DOTS - It’s always been this way in Sussex County. If you can connect the dots of kinship and convince a person you know his relatives, then just stand back and watch him change your tire and offer you a beer while you’re waiting.

I heard this joke when I first moved here 34 years ago: “The population of Sussex County always stays the same because every time a baby is born someone has to leave town.”

That joke doesn’t work anymore because of all the migratory land fowl circling the outer rim of the breeding population, but locals still rock the cultural boat.

SPEAKING OF CONNECTIONS - It was my idea to make Baby Lelia Jane Hughes the youngest Athlete of the Week - prenatal is next and, come to think of it, a new Fred is just five weeks away by Fredex delivery - so the day of Lelia Jane’s delivery I get 37 emails from D.J. Hughes, whose sister is Kristie Betts married to Skip and here we go with the family bio or else my good idea gets me into trouble I can never escape.

Paternal grandparents are Denny and Brenda Hughes of Milton. Paternal great-grandmothers are Mary Hughes of Milton and Lydia Wagamon of Harbeson. Maternal grandparents are Dr. Dave and Linda Robinson of Lewes. Lelia is also welcomed by Aunt Amy Robinson, Uncle Bill Crotty and cousins Ava and Darcy. For some more local sports history connections, Lelia now shares a birthday with Milton High School’s all-time leading girls basketball scorer, Joyce Rauch. Joyce’s son, Rusty, was D.J.’s best man and Joyce’s twin brother, Jesse Millman, is D.J.’s uncle. It’s still Sussex County y’all!

MARVIN AND MATT - “Marvin, hey what you doing now/It seems like yesterday when we were working out.”

(“Nightshift” by The Commodores.)

Cape basketball Coach Dwight Tingle called me Wednesday morning laughing to let me know that Indian River basketball coach Marvin Phipps was not Matt Spence. Because when I wrote my story of the Friday night Cape victory over Indian River I wanted Marvin to be Matt, which he certainly is not, and the fact that coach Tingle was the only one to bring it to my attention means the rest don’t read my stories, don’t know Marvin from Matt, or simply laugh and say, “that Fredman is stupid.”

JASON SMITH - Jason was the 20th overall pick out of Colorado State by the 76ers in the 2007 draft. Jason was at the DSBA banquet last Sunday night and said when he was growing up his parents always stressed academics over athletics, which is easy to say when you’re seven feet tall then leave college early for the NBA draft. Smith tore his ACL last summer and is sitting out this season.

SNIPPETS - The Henlopen Conference is working on a new wrestling schedule for next year where interdivisional bouts will not count in the standings and don’t have to occur if both teams concur they don’t want to wrestle. Get it?

The Woodbridge at Cape basketball game has been rescheduled for Saturday, Feb. 7, with varsity at 5 p.m. The Cape boys play at Seaford Friday, Jan. 30, at 4 p.m.

Mariner and Beacon - both girls and boys - will tip off basketball games Tuesday, Feb. 3, at Cape’s Little Big House beginning at 4 p.m. This may be the only opportunity for these athletes to play an organized game in the storied gymnasium scheduled for demolition in 2010 because you can’t have too many parking spaces.

Swarthmore senior Cait Mullarkey spoke at last Sunday’s DSBA banquet. Cait is a Rhodes Scholar for 2009, one of 32 in the nation. She is the 17th student-athlete to earn a varsity letter and be a Rhodes Scholar while at Swarthmore College. She is captain of the soccer team and is a champion 800-meter runner and steeplechaser. Mullarkey is the package. You can read more about Cait on the Swarthmore website.