Gymnasiums are longhouses of human interaction

Long house - A gym where games are played is a community version of the Quaker meeting house, just a gathering of people. There are no ministers or creeds, but lots of experts and second-guessers. The family is the ruling class followed by fans of kids playing sports. We see people we know and reacquaint, and we see aliens from other school districts and perhaps make new friends or realize everybody’s got crazy people. We are all friends in the longhouse, and there ain’t no place like the home bleachers. Late-afternoon middle school games are best for the full family effect.

My bad you bad - As a columnist, if I lay down satire that goes over the reader’s head, it’s my fault for not hitting a line drive with my fungo bat of witticisms. Flipping that flapjack, if I watch a Super Bowl halftime show and have no clue of the backdrop and all the embedded messages, whose fault is that? I believe it’s still my fault, falling back on an advertising campaign used by the Washington Post long before Amazon and Bezos, “If you don’t get it, you just don’t get it.” I was using music as a teaching tool back in 1986, playing a pretty ferocious rap song that had part of the class squirming and the other part nodding their heads, saying, “That’s what I’m talking about.” I remember Jermaine Mapp explaining to me to not to take the lyrics literally, that sometimes the message was the exact opposite of what I was hearing. Advice to the non-woke critics circling the sports stadiums of America – there is no woke culture explaining that to your peeps, and, by the way, no one says peeps anymore, not even Little Bo Peep’s relatives.

Low-seeded high hopes - The goal of seeded tournaments is to keep the higher-seeded teams away from each other until a deep run, perhaps the semifinals. I am always struck by the jubilation of lower-seeded teams for just making the tournament (perhaps a season goal), although they are likely to get waxed like a Waves car wash in the first round. “You never know” is a sports cliché, except most times you do know. I’ve seen plenty of unexpected results happen in wrestling, from state duals to the season-ending individual tournament. Those upsets lurk in the hallways and shadows of all tournaments. Basketball, swimming and indoor track are all moving closer to showtime. And let’s not forget the middle school Capital Classic basketball tournament that will crown four girls’ champions and five on the boys’ side. In the 2023 state duals wrestling tournament, No. 4 Salesianum beat No. 1 Sussex Central 29-28, then topped No. 2 Cape Henlopen 36-27 for the Division I state championship. That same year, No. 2 Delaware Military Academy beat top-seeded Caravel 36-24 for the Division II state championship.  I’m giving Cape boys’ track a puncher’s chance to win the indoor state championship. The school’s last win came in 1993. The Henlopen Conference champion Cape boys’ swim team has been dominating all season. The state meet is Thursday, Feb. 20, and Saturday, Feb. 22, at the University of Delaware. Last season, the Cape boys placed fifth in a meet dominated by Salesianum. 

Eagles draft - If I’m GM, I’m trading up to get Penn State tight end Tyler Warren. He is 6-foot-6, weighs 260 pounds and won the John Mackey Award as the best tight end in college football. Warren was a high school quarterback. The kid is an athlete. Give up Dallas Goedert (30 years old) and Cooper DeJean (just kidding) and next year’s second. Throw in Kenny Pickett and Nick Sirianni’s personal protector Big Dom. 

Snippets - The Delaware State women’s lacrosse team hired Madeline Price as its new head coach. Price was head coach the last two years at Milford High School. The Hornets have dropped opening home games to Lasalle University 15-4 and UMBC 20-5. Megan Fry is the new head coach for girls’ lacrosse at Milford. University of Delaware field hockey coach Rolf van de Kerkhof has stepped down. The high school coaches who talked to me all had great things to say about Rolf and all he did to help promote the sport in Delaware. Delaware was 12-10 in 2024, 8-9 in 2023 and 10-12 in 2022. Noelle Sabbagh (Cape) will be a senior on the 2025 Delaware field hockey team. Delaware was NCAA Division I national champion in 2016 under  Rolf. Maggie Delp (Cape) was a junior midfielder on that championship team. Jacki Coveleski (Cape) had graduated the previous year and played on a 16-6 team. Dustin Elliott, a senior Sussex Tech wrestler, has committed to wrestle at Bloomsburg University. Elliott is the defending 144-pound state champion. Joel Embiid of the 76ers is a citizen of three countries: the United States, France and Cameroon. Go on now, git!