Every coach knows how to protect a player in foul trouble

Bishop Egan basketball had not made the Philadelphia Catholic playoffs since the year I was the leading scorer in 1964. This year the team was back, but right before the first playoff game, some priests walked in the locker room and told the point guard - one of three black players on the team at the traditionally white school - that he was ineligible by Egan rules for poor academic performance.

Pennsbury High School, the public school nearby, qualified for the state tournament with an undersized team that overachieved. The senior point guard missed the opening game because he decided to go to a party at Penn State.

FALLING SHORT - Last Tuesday at Cape, in the first round of the basketball tournament, senior Bianca Parker, who needed 17 points to join the 1,000-point club, fouled out in the second quarter with only three points, 14 short of her milestone.

Speaking like a kid, I have to say “that is just so crazy” and I don’t blame her mom for searching for the people who ruined their family night. I kept pointing toward the Delcastle bench. Every coach knows how to protect a player in foul trouble.

LEADERSHIP DAY - Cape used to have Leadership Day once a school year in the school library. I walked past the confab many a time looking through the glass from the outside in and muttering words like “lame” and “goody two shoes.” I was never invited because I wasn’t out of the box because that would assume I ever climbed into one in the first place.

Once a student said to me, “Hey Fredman, you just like us. You ain’t gettin’ in there because they don’t see you as no leader. And anyway, they ain’t your people. See you at track practice.”

That is the rub. Quite often leaders may not be who we want them to be. Leadership is an art, a style; it takes a certain charisma and talent, and the key to sports teams is finding those people - quite often they are not the captains - and tapping into their influence and ability to motivate. Any coach with a clue will admit that a team left alone often sees things differently than the mainstream model of leadership.

I had a team leader in 1978 named Glen Smith who could get the track team to do things I could not so I harnessed his talents except for the times when I couldn’t.

ALLEN FAMILIES - Last Wednesday at the Cape state tournament basketball game, I sat near Gerald Allen, former Cape track star and Hodgson administrator, and Jimmy Allen, former Cape basketball star. Gerald and Jimmy’s grandfathers were brothers and Gerald’s generation had 10 children while Jimmy’s had nine. When you trace history and kinship in the local black community, Allens are everywhere.

Last Wednesday, Feb. 24, Tony Allen, a former custodian for Cape working mostly at the school in Lewes, was killed while working under a car. Locals knew Tony as a guy who fixed cars, according to his brother Jimmy, “just thousands of cars over his lifetime.”

Tony was also a “ferocious big hitter in football,” according to his cousin Gerald and was a teammate of Bill Collick. A service for Tony will be at 1 p.m., Friday, March 5, at John Wesley Church in Belltown. The viewing is two hours prior to that.

SNIPPETS - Last weekend a group of cheerleaders representing Cape Henlopen High School won the Delaware Cheerleading Coaches Association Small Varsity Coed State Championship at the University of Delaware. The coaches were Tiffany Hart, Stacy Christensen and Joey O’Brien. Cheerleaders were Nekea Blackwell, Courtney Brand, Danielle Christensen, Danielle Diener, Catherine Egan, Andrew Fagg, Montoz Hall, Danielle Howard, Jerome Johnson, Lauren Keyes, Lauren Rawlins, Sarah Thompson, Georgina Voss, Chelsey Wagner and Jordan Waterhouse.

Leigh Ann Redefer has started and played both games for Mary Washington University. Last Monday in Disney World, UMW defeated 17th-ranked Roanoke 17-9. Mary Washington will host Wesley Friday, April 9. The Wolverines are now coached by Debbie Windett, and former Cape player Brooke Bennett is an outstanding defenseman or defense woman or defense person for the team. Brooke was All-CAC last season.

Check websites4sports.com for the latest in schedules and results. And email davefredman@comcast.net to offer suggestions for athletes of the week - even if it is your kid.