I can keep a secret, but I’m not holding on to any jokes

Samantha Fernandez was my student at Cape back in 2003, the year she graduated. She didn’t play sports or belong to any specific social group that I remember. I nicknamed her the Cuban Cutie because she is, in fact, Cuban and she was the type of student who made a teacher feel good about their communication abilities. Samantha was working with the Rudder staff prior to last Sunday’s 5K race. She is closing in on her associate degree from Delaware Tech in communication marketing.

FAT GUY GONE - I saw Cody Smith prior to the Danielle Guerin 5K last Saturday and told him to quickly get into his car and go back to Delaware and pick up the fat guy he brought there last September.

Last June Cody played offensive guard in the Blue-Gold All-Star game at 260 pounds. Last Saturday he stepped to the start line running with his cousin Jackie Warren weighing 205 - a whopping reduction of 55 pounds. Jackie, by the way, plays softball for Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Like lots of young athletic guys, Cody said he just ate less and worked out more and dropped the dreaded word salad.

I asked him what motivated him to start in the first place and he said, “Chicks don’t like fat guys.” Cody’s motivation is to enter the state police upon graduation a lean and mean fighting machine and to then get fat.

PHILLY FILLY - Cape graduate Julie Jackson ran in last Saturday’s Danielle 5K and afterwards said to me, “Fredman, what is up with the Filly category? Everybody is 150 pounds.”

And then she told me her weight class and I agreed the Clydesdales and Fillies categories have been hijacked by runners too fit, you know, like large dogs taking double X shirts off the rack at Marshall’s. Julie is a graduate of Villanova and a member of the Nanticoke Nation and there is her dad Phil who is one big dude and runs on occasion.

SOFTBALL SUGAR DADDIES - I was watching Texas A&M defeat the Florida Gators at the College World Series of baseball on ESPN last Sunday night and thought it was cool that an entire section of young Aggie Men were wearing team shirts “Softball Sugar Daddies” and cheering on their team. Then I saw this older guy, a grandfather, with a homemade shirt that read “I’m Mandy’s Sugar Grand Daddy” and I’m like “Hold the phone Pops! I don’t think that is the correct message.” The urban slang for Sugar Daddy is an older and richer man with a younger kept woman but, of course, slang terminology is a changeable thing.

OFF THE RECORD - People on my beat tell me really good stuff and either say “off the record” or the stuff is so privileged they just assume I am smart enough to keep it off the record. And then there are other people who think I will take something trivial about them and put them in the column just to get a laugh. I am a trustworthy person who can keep a secret, but I’m not holding on to any jokes.

WAY PAST BIRD - I go back way beyond Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to watching the greatest basketball ever in the old Philly versus Boston series at Convention Hall when it was Wilt Chamberlain versus Bill Russell. Chamberlain just ate him up but Boston could play the game like no team ever has since. The ball just never hit the floor without a reason, everyone could shoot and pass and there was none of this “clear out for the back down on the low block draw the foul” excitement of today.

I am a Boston fan in this series, although the Lakers appear to be the better team. How come no one ever asked Kobe “How is Jelly Bean?” which is his dad, Joe, who used to play for Philly?

SNIPPETS - Commencement at a construction site this Tuesday, June 3 is something straight out of a Road Warrior movie. Just “go into the light” get there anyway you can and there will be valet service for the handicapped otherwise known as Bernie on the Gator.

I don’t have a handicapped tag but I do have an authentic clergy card for my dashboard and no one argues with Father Fredman.

Lots of grouchy people are against the referendum for the new turf field. Get out there and support athletes in action.