Enough hubbub; time to get this baby off the ground

I have been inside most loops of secret stories since the three-ring days of Ballantine beer - a row-house boy with his head inside a truck tire tube doing stem cell research in the Wildwood surf. Last Friday I fielded so many Bill Collick-related cell phone calls my ear was getting hot. All day long there was relentless hubbub - defined as a confused noise of many voices - on whether the Vikings’ top choice would come across the table and accept Cape’s offer to be the next football coach.

The job has been eating coaches like Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins over the last nine losing seasons. Bill is on board - let’s get this baby off the ground - as of late Friday night and now begins the work of meeting with the athletes and putting together a staff.

I have a sixth sense, a sports vision, and I see talent placed into a system that is schematically sound, in other words, an offense that can run and throw and eat some clock and a defense with a clue as to alignments, adjustments and responsibilities. Trust me, Cape’s first opponent, Indian River, has just gone to Code Red. Paul Kmetz of Indian River had dubbed the game “Battle of the Boardwalks.” No one wants to be the chum in the water when the football feeding frenzy begins.

NATURAL ORDER - This is a concept in social psychology that suggests when you experience things you’re not supposed to see or hear, you immediately deny their occurrence because they simply don’t fit into the natural order of the universe as you understand it. Last Saturday, at the hot and dusty interminable state championship softball game at Smyrna between Caravel and Milford, I heard a voice from the outfield lawn chair lounge scream out “Pour Vaseline on yourself - believe in yourself!” I know what I heard and tried to talk myself out of it but wrote it down like a dream about to vaporize. I tried to pour Vaseline on myself before writing this column but turned the jar upside down and it just stayed there.

BOOM BOOM POWELL - Billy Powell, 22 years old, just graduated from Salve Regina College in Newport, Rhode Island. I met Billy before Sunday’s Great Strides 5K race in Rehoboth, introduced by his father Jack, a longtime quality road runner and relentless endless summer surfer dude. Billy was at the center of community fundraising just shy of his third birthday 19 years ago as he battled back from childhood leukemia. I remember Cape’s Little Theater being packed and listening to Doug James perform. Billy made it - a college graduate and road racer, so how cool is that? The Cape community of connected people continues to be a great place offering a safety net for families needing our help and if that sounds hokey, well okey-dokey, that’s just the way it is.

SNIPPETS - Ken Savage, owner and operator, and master instructor Jack Powell run a summer surf school - yes, in the summer - and information can be found at delmarvasurfschool.com. I can’t surf but I’m willing to be the hodad of granddads. A hodad is defined as one who drives his Jeep to the beach, sticks his board in the sand and chats up Betties. I had an Aunt Betty known around the back bays of Margate as Sea Ox. The Phillies should trade Jason Werth to Seattle for Cliff Lee and throw in Ibanez free of charge, and if it gets close give the Mariners Jimmy Rollins to close the deal. The Flyers were dominated in the first period at Chicago and got down 2-0, so I grabbed a bowl of ice cream and switched to a special on America’s obesity epidemic. How does a team throw in the towel in game six and go on to give up 7 goals? Laron Profit, class of 1995, was the commencement speaker at Caesar Rodney High School’s graduation. Profit played basketball at Maryland and in the NBA and gave special mention to his high school principal Dave Robinson and basketball coach Jeff Savage. Laron spoke of Profit’s 4 P’s: Potential, Passion, Pitfalls and Principles. Tommy “Boo Boo” Rushin represents a pitfall from Profit’s past, having thrown in a buzzer-beating banked three ball from the third row to eliminate the Riders from the state tournament. The Boo Boo Bank is always open; it is the stuff of legends.