I’m a galloping moron who should be shut down

I am the first to admit that, as a sports parent and sportswriter and coach all at the same time, I was capable of throwing good sense to the side of the road and made decisions that put the welfare of my own sons in jeopardy just to keep them off injured reserve. Quarterback Dave in game five of his senior season, 1987, took a helmet to the face and was knocked into the next millennium. At halftime he spoke in tongues, and spent the night in the Beebe psych unit where a patient tried to sell him socks. A neurologist told me, “He should be kept from contact for three weeks.” I told her, ”No, he is a senior and they play Seaford on Friday night and he will be in the lineup.” In 1993, quarterback Tom stretched his medial meniscus and missed two games. The radiologist called the high school and told me the meniscus was torn and his year was finished. I told the doctor his meniscus was not torn, and requested another reading by a different doctor.

The returned result: not torn. She said, “How did you know?” I told her I read the x-ray and didn’t even go to Del Tech.

The last injury was to end Jack, who had the wing of a Caesar Rodney shoulder pad go over his facemask crossbar and cut and crack the orbital bone above his eye, which disappeared under a pool of blood. Jack was freaked out; it was suggested by medical people that he miss a couple of games - which I vetoed, in favor of a lineman’s facemask. I think I should write a manual for young athletes: “What to do when your dad is a freaking sports lunatic.”

My bad - I write sports satire and basically I’m the only one who does. But here’s the deal - if the satire misses the mark and is taken in a way you didn’t intend, it can appear mean or stupid, not to mention unsolicited and unjustified. You may notice I’m always cracking on my Philly relatives because they threw me out of the kinship boat years ago for one too many jokes they didn’t think were funny. No amount of rationalization or explanation can bring Aunt Rose back to me for writing, “She was standing over the sink, 20-inch arms buried to the elbow in macaroni salad.” Last week I thought I was making fun of my own generation of football players mentioning injuries to Jake and Ryan that didn’t exist when I played. I never gave it another thought, as I have never questioned the toughness of an athlete in print or in person and to me it’s absurd that I was suggesting Ryan should play with a cracked tibia and Jake with a bruised kidney. But it landed wrong and now those families join my actual blood relatives in thinking I’m a galloping moron who should be shut down and they are right. Can I go home now?

Hockey hotbed - I always tell coaches, “The better the team the more people that want to coach it.” Just make sure when you talk shop about who should play and who shouldn’t, you’re not standing too close to someone’s relative. Our region is a hotbed of hockey talent both varsity and junior varsity at Cape and Sussex Tech as well as Cape’s middle school teams both A and B. Now Sussex Academy joins the fray of teams that can just flat out play the game. The good news is everybody can play; the bad news is everybody can’t play at the same time.

Snippets - Andy Gardner, 30 years old, is the brother of Brett, a Cape quarterback who led the football Vikings to a 10-1 record and berth in state finals against Newark in 1985. On Oct. 9, Andy, from Kingwood, Texas, completed the Kona World Championship Iron Man, swimming 2.4 miles then averaging 22 mph on the 112-mile bike followed by a 3:22 full marathon. Andy’s total time was 9:24, and if you know this burgeoning sport, that puts him in the elite category. The winner was 37-year-old Chris McCormack of Australia in a combined time of 8:10. His marathon time was 2:40. Andy Gardner’s profession was listed as “miscellaneous.” Sounds like a lot of locals I know.