Here’s another good role model story for young athletes

Todd Herremans and Juqua Parker, a pair of Eagle defensive starters, were pulled over a few days ago near training camp because Herremans’ “souped-up” van made an illegal left turn, but at least he had his headlights out in the dark. Herreman’s BAL was under the legal limit but he was on the chart. And Parker copped to being the sole owner of a small amount of marijuana and a bag of cheeseburgers. This sounds like a Cheech and Chong movie. Here is another good role model story for our young athletes. Try convincing some scholastic stoner inside a helmet that smoking the cabbage will make him slower. That wheezing sound you hear is not the air moving through your helmet ear holes; it’s your lungs, son.

CYBER CHATTY CATHYS - What sound does a 500-pound canary make? TWEET!!! Twitter is lame and so are message boards and threads, and now coaches are faced with free speech issues - which have actually been going on for a while - inside their own teams. My rule would be that any team member engaged in public subterfuge and criticism of the team he plays for forfeits the right to be a member of that team.

Even more lame are parents who read and post messages on sites frequented by high school kids. Just like the hippie movement of the ‘60s gave ugly people a place to hide, the cyber world of the millennium gives handles to those not brave enough to stand in front of their opinions.

ONE WITH THE BALL - I interviewed a young African exchange student and soccer player at Westtown Prep many years ago and I remember his going all metaphysical on me, saying, “I like to become one with the ball, to get lost in the moment where there is no thought and no anticipation, just free-flowing movement where the game envelops me and we are one and the same.”

“I feel the same way about a cold bottle of beer,” I told him, feeling he was playing me.

But I have been watching too many young people in sports in pursuit of trophies and ribbons and not getting lost in the glory of the moment and I see this as a bad thing. The old “he is just so competitive in everything he does” is not a good thing because sports is not about the beat down, as trite as it may sound, it is about the joy of competition and not the philosophy, “I won, therefore you lost.”

BRING THEM BACK HOME - I would like to have 20 minutes at the first teacherwide in-service to bring in 10 Cape graduates - some as old as 50 and grandparents now - each allotted 90 seconds to tell a personal story about why it is important to never give up on a kid.

I spoke to a young Afro-American man named Sammy on the fishing pier last Saturday. He told me there isn’t a day that he doesn’t wake up and thank the people from Cape who stood by him when he didn’t deserve it. And my friend since 1976, Chico Beckett, who came around to check on me, sat on my back porch and said, “I love you, coach. You taught me so much about how to live my life.”

And Greg Smock, the new Woodbridge basketball coach, has fond memories of Cape. Just a few days ago he told me of a conversation he had with coach Bud Hitchens and how much it meant to him that Hitchens tried to help him back in his hard-headed high school days and 25 years later was still there for him. The Power of One is what teaching and coaching is all about.

SNIPPETS - The Delaware Diamonds U10 fast pitch softball team is looking for players. Tryouts will be Sunday, Aug. 16, from 5-7 p.m. at Gerald Jester’s field in Georgetown (Wilson Hill Road) off Route 113. If you’re interested or need more details, call Chrissy Spencer at 302-841-4139 or email her at cspencer16266@aol.com.

The National Lifeguard Championships are being held Aug. 6-8 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Live results can be found at uslanationals.org.

Wesley College junior lacrosse defender Brooke Bennett (Milton/Cape Henlopen) was named to the All-Capital Athletic Conference Second Team for the second straight year in voting by the conference coaches. It is the third all-conference selection of her career after earning a place on the All-Pennsylvania Athletic Conference before Wesley moved to the CAC.

My total hip replacement is three weeks past surgery and I’m walking a mile twice a day and riding the stationary bike to nowhere as long as my butt can stand it. My physical therapist and friend, John Knarr, will train Vitali Klitschko, a three-time heavyweight champion of the world, for a fight this fall at the Staples Center. John is also the PT professional for younger brother, Wladimir, the reigning heavyweight champion of the world.