I’m amazed how some teenage athletes can put on weight

How does a projected “rain event” for this Monday turn into a 30-inch snowstorm? Local coastal lowlanders have become weather alarmists, sounding the warning bell with a hint of precipitation. I think people also just like panic buying followed by eating everything when they get home.

Speaking of weight classes, I am amazed how some teenage athletes can put on weight when snowbound; it’s a wonder we mature adults aren’t all 900 pounds. The too many cars and buses around Cape HenlopenHigh School this weekend means the Henlopen Conference Wrestling Championships are on site, so stop by, pay $8 and watch some young athletes getting after each other.

SNOW BUNNY - The color white never looked so bright as the blond, beleaguered Lindsey Vonn of the USA stood at the gate on top of the snow mountain staring down a trail outlined in blue which gave the appearance of a wedding cake made from sheets of ice. Her time in the downhill held up for a gold medal, which was nice, but when she finally relented,  going “snow angel” in her personal celebration followed by way too long, whiny reflections about her stupid bruised shin and crying in her boyfriend’s arms, I was sick of the skier.

I know that’s my problem and I know you have to be self-absorbed if not obsessed in an 80 mph quest for a gold medal, but I give the completely satisfied about 30 seconds then I have to reenter my own world in my personal quest to hold onto my Food Lion MVP card.

THE MAN THAT I AM – “If I was the man you wanted I would not be the man that I am.” - Lyle Lovett

I wrote a story in 2006 then put it on my blog that no one reads and it showed up on a Facebook home page for a school where I used to teach and coach before coming to Cape. So I was contacted and wrote in a window asking if anyone knew what happened to some former athletes. I got back an answer from a woman who accused me of having that “attitude” because of the 20 names mentioned there were no women. I assured her I had always been a champion of women in sports but I had coached men and I wished she would give me and the group names of women who played, arguing “we all have fractured memories but maybe together we could produce one complete memory.”

She wrote back and said she never played sports so she wouldn’t know any names. Then I got it that some woman who played a sport called “looking for a fight.” Once you enter the ring you cannot argue your way out.

GLORY OF THE GAME - Swimmers, track athletes, soccer players, junior varsity girls basketball, tennis players, travel ball teams, lifeguard Olympians, sunfish racers and other too numerous to mention - kite surfers - don’t attract traveling fans and don’t deserve any. That’s like saying a Chevy Cobalt deserves to be bought; the way it works is people watch what they want and buy what they want. It all gets back to playing a sport for the love of doing it, happy to be part of something. The fan side and media side is there sometimes and sometimes not for the athlete, so who cares?

ALEX BILODEAU - Alex won the first Canadian gold on home soil on the bumpy mogul downhill, throwing in a back flip and helicopter, and became a national hero partly for gold but also for his handling of the underlying story.

Alex has a brother with cerebral palsy who was there for the celebration and Alex said, “Growing up with a handicapped person in the family gives you a certain perspective; my brother has plenty he could complain about but he absolutely never complains.”

That was it; just two young brothers being themselves and a nation fell in love with them. And you know what makes us tear up at this story?

We all know families who play this out every day and we forget what an inspiration they are to all of us.