High school can be harsh or - as the kids say - just plain stupid

The Baylor Bears women’s basketball team led powerhouse Connecticut Tuesday night 56-48 with 6:42 left in the game. I saw another vignette for my book “Getting Home: How Can I Screw This Up?” I knew Baylor was toast that hadn’t yet popped. They had no idea how to get home, and UConn, with a 79-game win streak that would go to 80 after a one-point victory, didn’t flinch. They played unafraid and played to the end. I watched a game live in 1973 when the UCLA men’s team lost after 88 straight. It was at Notre Dame and the Bruins were lit up by a freshman named Adrian Dantley, who had played at Dematha for coach Morgan Wooten. Dantley later led the United States’ Olympic gold medal team in scoring at the 1976 Montreal games.

A sense of spirituality - The spirit of a person commingles with a sense of self. I know that for athletes who work hard and have a well-developed sense of self, spirituality and sportsmanship can never lose. They are not idiots; they suffer disappointment like everyone else. Any athlete who plays hard goes down to defeat even harder, but a broader perspective that allows light to shine on life’s bigger picture is what being a player is all about.

The made list - I never coached a sport in which I had to cut people. And I don’t think I’d have been capable at any point in my life of posting a cut list on the wall of a school. I’ve seen plenty of them in my career, but now they have been replaced by a made list or, as I jokingly call it, “the list you’re not on in the hallway down by the gym.” High school can be harsh or - as the kids say - just plain stupid.

Realistic self-image - Thirty-five years ago I was the head football coach at a private school for emotionally disturbed teenagers, which by the way doesn’t mean they weren’t happy. One day a Super Fly impersonator named Kevin was just getting on my nerves in his yellow and brown baggy ensemble so I asked, “Kevin, where does a guy like you see himself 10 years from now?” He didn’t hesitate. “Playing in the NBA, man, lighting people up, burning people down, playing four quarters for the almighty dollar.” “And the fact that you were just cut from the junior varsity squad at a special school, do you see that as being 95 cents short of a dollar?” I was wrong; I couldn’t help it. But Kevin tripped all day long every day. I wanted to shut him down for a moment of self-awareness and force him to take stock of himself. People always remember the adult who told them what they couldn’t do, but sometimes trifling and tripping teens need a serious dose of reality.

Rut and run - “Shotgun, shoot ‘em, ‘fore they run!” Deer are on the move, ramming cars at record rates. My daughter Carrie and her black Jetta were the victims of an antler assault last week on Cave Neck Road as she was on her way to Mariner to teach. “We know you’re upset but what time can you get here?” Within an hour and a half Lewes Body Works, Blue Hen Towing, Met Life, Delaware State Police, animal control and Enterprise car rental had all reacted and acted and done their jobs. It was impressive, like here in America we still know how to do things. “I have eight cars on site right now, all deer hits over the last two weeks,” said Richard Perez of Lewes Body Works. “It’s the double-H theory - horny and hunted,” Richard said in answer to the question “Why did the deer cross the road?”

Go figure! - Cape athletes get better press coverage than they will ever get if they continue to play in college and in most cases they play games in front of bigger crowds. The University of Delaware, which offers a full array of Division One sports, gave me the following average attendance figures over the last seasons: 2010 men’s soccer: 267; 2010 women’s soccer: 252; 2010 field hockey: 365; 2009 men’s lacrosse: 1,016; 2009 women’s lacrosse: 295. To me, the moral of the reality is twofold.

First, continue to play if you really like playing; second, if the monetary stipend is worth the time spent practicing and playing as opposed to say, a work-study job in the library, then by all means do it.

Snippets - The 2-0 University of Delaware women’s basketball team has moved up to No. 15 from 24 in the national Mid-Major Poll, and if you are like me you didn’t know there was such a ranking. The Phoenix team of Green Bay, Wis., is No. 1. The Mid-Major Poll is made up of teams from the following conferences: America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Great West, Horizon, Independents, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, Summit, Sun Belt, West Coast. You lost me at Phoenix.